Steve Kwast – How China is Mining the Moon and Weaponizing Space | SRS #202

Steve Kwast – How China is Mining the Moon and Weaponizing Space | SRS #202

3h 9m
887.2K views
20.6K
3.0K
Watch on YouTube

About This Episode

Steven L. Kwast is a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General and the Co-founder and CEO of SpaceBilt, a company reimagining the entire spacecraft lifecycle to enable scalable, sustainable space infrastructure. A 1986 U.S. Air Force Academy graduate in astronautical engineering, he served 33 years, commanding units like the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing in Afghanistan and the Air Education and Training Command. A combat-tested F-15E pilot with 3,300+ flight hours (650 in combat), he also holds a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard. A key advocate for the U.S. Space Force, Kwast now leads innovation in space technology and speaks on national security, space policy, and economic development beyond Earth. Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkoujZQZatbqy4KGcgjpVxQ/join Shawn Ryan Show Links SUBSCRIBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ShawnRyanShow Sign up: https://shawnryanshow.com/pages/newsletter Support the Show: https://www.patreon.com/VigilanceElite Download Free Content: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lF-8_5jwRc5eAhzDkqqCOp-6yvd05vAw?usp=sharing Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shawn-ryan-show/id1492492083 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5eodRZd3qR9VT1ip1wI7xQ?si=59f9d106e56a4509 Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnryanshow Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shawnryanshow/ Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shawnryanshow/ Follow on X: https://twitter.com/ShawnRyanShow SRS Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4pqo9Uoh0WuUKxw0BmaK1yrg9Kd7E4lk #vigilanceelite #shawnryanshow Steve Kwast Links: LinkedIn - ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-kwast-362a3a15⁠  Skycorp Incorporated - ⁠https://www.skycorpinc.com⁠ SpaceBilt - ⁠https://www.spacebilt.com Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: ⁠⁠https://uscca.com/srs⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.meetfabric.com/shawn⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://hexclad.com/srs⁠⁠ https://www.fastgrowingtrees.com⁠⁠ - USE CODE SRS ⁠⁠https://www.rocketmoney.com/srs⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.shopify.com/srs 00:00 Introduction and Welcome 02:05 Steve Kwast's Background and Achievements 05:13 Space Warfare and Its Implications 14:14 Challenges in Innovation and Energy 22:46 The Role of Truth in National Security 33:54 China's Activities on the Moon 43:51 The Importance of Space Force and Future Strategies 48:07 Protecting the Power Grid from Electromagnetic Pulses 01:02:08 The Role of AI in Modern Warfare 01:16:00 The Potential of Space-Based Logistics 01:34:01 China's Espionage and the Race for Innovation 01:40:18 Global Perception of American Innovation 01:54:52 The Future of Space Economy 02:06:03 Solar Power from Space 02:12:23 The Potential of Space-Based Energy Solutions 02:24:25 Genesis Systems and Space Habitats 02:40:50 Quantum Technology and Its Implications 02:55:13 The Future of Technology and Society 03:04:47 Closing Thoughts and Reflections

Topics

vigilance elite
shawn ryan
shawn ryan show
the shawn ryan show
shawn ryan podcast
podcast
srs
podcast show

Full Transcript

[Music] Steve Quast, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. And thank you for what you're doing for our world by finding truth. Oh, it's uh it's an honor to do it. And um and I I love doing it. That's like like I was just saying, there's nothing else I'd rather be doing. So, it's it's a real honor to be able to do it. And uh thank you for saying that and thank you for being here. Yeah, my pleasure. So I found you. I saw this clip which I'll get into on X energy the seed corn of all development all growth all survival survival energy. So energy transportation information and manufacturing. These are the things that change humanity that will change world power and they are descending upon us in ways that are very unique. The technology is on the engineering benches today, but most Americans and most in Congress have not had time to really look deeply at what's going on here. But I've had the benefit of 33 years of studying and becoming friends with these engineers and these scientists. This technology can be built today with technology that is not developmental to deliver any human being from any place on planet Earth to any other place. in less than an hour to deliver Wi-Fi from space where you never need a cell tower to connect to deliver energy from space where you never have to plug your phone in and it trickle charges and you can use that energy over time. It can be applied to cars to houses. that was that was talking about all this stuff that I'm into, but I've never really and you rumors percolate, especially around the UFO community and stuff, but I really never know what to think about that. Then to have somebody like you up there talking about it, I think it was at Hillsdale College. I was like, "Oh man, we got to find a way to get in touch with this guy cuz this is this stuff sounds really cool." But um so everybody starts off with an introduction. Steve Quast, Lieutenant General, USAF, retired, raised by missionary parents in a remote African tribe and moved back to California before the age of 10. Graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1986 with a degree in astronomical engineering. You're a rocket scientist. military career spanned every major combat operation from a young lieutenant fighter pilot in Desert Storm, culminating as the commanding Air Force general at Bram Air Base in Afghanistan. master's degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in Public Policy and former president of Air University. President of the number one startup company in America in 2022, Genesis Systems, co-founder and CEO of Spaceuild, a company pioneering future sustainability, space construction, and economic development. Husband to Joanie, father of two. It's my understanding you're a grandfather, too. Yes. And most importantly, you're a Christian. Yes. But um so yeah, I saw this this lecture you were given at at Hillsdale College. It was just a a small clip, but you were talking about being able to transport what sound and I'm going to roll the clip right now. Okay. But it sounded like you said that you could transport. We have the technology to be able to transport any anybody from one point on Earth to another point in less than an hour. Correct. And you'd also spoke about beaming energy down to our devices to charge. And this is I've been digging into the inter energy space and and you know it doesn't seem like a lot has developed since like we we had that boom after World War II and then innovators didn't stop, but it seems like government is stopped. Yeah. And so I want I want to talk about all these things, but first let's Well, actually, hold on. Sorry. I got a present for you. I'm so excited. I for everybody gets one. Thank you. Vigilance gummy bears. Been looking forward to it. Legal in all 50 states, made here in the US. Thank you. And man, I got way ahead of myself there. But uh I have a Patreon account. It's a community. Uh it's a subscription service and and uh we've built it into a community and they've been here with me since the very beginning. Nice. And uh and supported the the build out in my attic when we when we started the show in my attic and then we moved here and now we're moving to a new studio. And and these guys have just supported me tremendously throughout the way. And um and nice. So, one of the things I do is I offer them the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. Well, good. So, this is from Blake Horn. What are your views on the potential for future space conflicts? Considering that destroying enemy satellites generates debris that could threaten our own satellites, what are the major risks associated with space warfare? Yeah, the uh it's a great question and it's something we have to be very careful of u because space has characteristics that are different than air, land and sea and under the sea. Uh but like any domain um if you do not have strength to be able to prevent conflict or strength to be able to um uh constrain the violence if somebody else acts in an evil way uh then you just become a victim of it. So all of the things he says are true in that that space has the potential of being a a place where people uh exact violence for uh personal gain and can do de devastating things to everybody else in the area. Um and this is one reason why we have to really pay attention to these technologies in this new domain that has different characteristics than all the others. But it's no different than any other human uh activity moving into a new domain. You have to be able to have the differential power to be able to prevent evil and uh and perpetuate good. Isn't space is supposed to be a a non-warfare zone? Correct. Right. And if we were all angels and nobody uh was weaponizing space, uh that would be true. But just because we have a 1967 outer space treaty that states those very words, uh we have uh uh great powers that are um doing things in space uh that are going to threaten uh America and other countries as well. So we have to be opened. would be like discovering an ocean and saying we're not going to have any fighting on the ocean. Yeah. And then uh we don't build a navy and everybody else does and we're the only victims of it. Who are the I 100% agree with you. I wasn't saying we shouldn't be doing anything. It's a good question though because we want peace and we want a we want a future that trends with less violence, but the way to do that is not to ignore a new domain and new technologies. The way to do that is to usher in peace through strength that is uh consistent with human nature and history and culture. Who are the who are the major players in space other than the US? Right. Well, um the the like all new technologies, uh it uh it is those countries that have the uh the the the resources and the will uh to develop capability. So, every every country that is paying attention to these trends of technology and change are investing in space. Uh if they don't have the money or the will that they aren't, but those are very few and far between. But as I talk to leaders in countries around the world, uh they understand the power of space, it would be like uh a country not having an air force and everybody else does or not having a navy or not having an army. Uh it doesn't mean these things are built to perpetuate wars. We want them to be there to prevent wars. uh and uh so the the the you know you have India, China, Russia, America, Japan, you know, you you could just go down the list of nations that are investing in space. Uh and uh it's not a bad thing. This is about evolving because of what space will be able to do to uplift the human condition. But if we don't pay attention to it and design it with the wisdom of what we have learned about how humans evolve into a new domain, uh we will repeat the the sins of the past. This is about understanding ourselves, understanding human nature, understanding technology and culture and then ushering in a geopolitical evolution of nations that all benefit from what space will do for our economies. Who should we be watching out for? Well, and you mentioned Japan, Russia, I'm sure China's involved. Yeah. Is there any other Well, I would reframe the question and say that uh you know, we uh we need to pay attention to the technologies that are being developed and what they could do. Uh because every technology can be used for good or for bad. and uh and and you need to be able to uh play in in that environment if somebody were to do something bad. You know, one of the the the simple statements of somebody in my position as a national security professional is be prepared for the unexpected. So as I watch for example another country developing solar power from space which is the technology of capturing the sun's intense energy in space where there's no night and day there's no weather to uh get in the way of the sun um and then transforming that into a radio wave and beaming it to earth to be able to turn it back into electricity on the earth which is one of the things I talked about in that Hillsdale speech. um that can be used for peaceful purposes. I mean that can be used to to to immediately send electricity to the tribe I grew up in Africa that has no power plant, no power lines, nothing because the topography is so aggressive. You know, it's uh the the transportation modalities are so insufficient that it's nobody would have the affordable business case to build them the electricity they need. But one satellite could deliver electricity to that spot and a thousand other spots. And and so but if let's say if uh one of our competitors develops that infrastructure in space and they use that to uplift the human condition by providing electricity to people who don't have it in a millisecond they could turn it into a directed energy weapon to destroy the people at that. Wow. So and this rem you know so let me give an analogy of air power. If you read the literature after 1903 when the Wright brothers invented the airplane you know it was like our federalist papers where there were some good arguments about the fact that it is immoral to develop an airplane because you could drop a bomb on somebody's head and others saying it is moral to develop an airplane because you can transport a sick person to the hospital and save their life. uh and back and forth uh just like the Federalist Papers argued should America have a navy or not have a navy and it was a it wasn't a no-brainer. It was a real argument that a navy's too expensive. Why would we spend money on a navy? Wow. Well, because your survival depends on it. Uh if somebody who is not your friend decides to use it as a weapon against you. So this is uh this goes back to why I you know have found what I consider to be the most brilliant engineer um that that uh many of us in the military have been watching for decades and I joined him to start this company Spaceu. It's an infrastructure and a logistics company because the nation that dominates space will be like those small nations back in the day like Spain, Portugal or England. All they had to do is invest in a dominant technology of ship building and deep sea navigation and they dominated the global economy. Dominated for for a hell of a long time. Space is going to be the same way. So when you ask me which countries do you look at it's not about the country or even how much money they have. It's about how they develop the technology. Okay. So a country as small as uh New Zealand which is a very aggressive space country. I mean Rocket Lab started out of New Zealand uh and uh you know they they could dominate the global economy. What is Rockiot Lab? Rocket Lab is a company uh that was started in New Zealand. It's now uh you know it's its American headquarters is in Long Beach, California and they build rockets uh to go to space like Elon Musk does reusable rockets. Um so it's an example though of the fact that you don't have to be a big country you have to have the right idea. Okay. Are we before really want to dive into the technologies but why his innovation slowed so much in the US? I mean it and when I say that I it's just trig I don't I don't even know how to say it because we have innovators like yourself like Palmer Lucky like Alexander Wang like Elon Musk like Grant for Standing Joe Lansdale I mean all these guys are developing this uh this just fascinating tech that but I I don't know how much of it's actually being implemented and and it It just seems like there's so much red tape. I mean, look at our power grid, you know, for example. It's seems to be extremely fragile, very vulnerable to cyber attacks. China develops, it manufactures I don't even know how much of our power grid and and and we're still stuck on why aren't we moving to nuclear or then you're talking about beaming energy in from space. I mean, what is what is the holdup? Like why are we not investing into our energy? I've spent years on this show pulling back the curtain and trying to reveal what's really happening in this country. And the truth is there's a double standard here in America. You see time and time again people defending themselves, defending their family, and then the judicial system goes after them. It's a double standard. And if you don't believe me, check out episode number three with Don Bradley. That is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Because it's not just about what you did, believe it or not. It's how the legal system interprets it. And that's why I'm a USCCCA member. The USCCA has over 860,000 members because they know the reality is after you stop the threat, the real fight begins. Your membership gives you the education, elite training, and self-defense liability insurance you need for the second fight, the legal one. Plus, every member also gets access to a 24/7 critical response team and attorney network in the event of a self-defense incident. Violent crime happens too often in America. This isn't about living in fear. This is about being prepared when things go sideways. You don't get to schedule danger. And with the world changing so fast, you have to do what you can to protect your family. Check out the USCCCA's risk-free membership at uscca.com/srs. That's uscca.com/srs. Protect more than just your life. Protect your future. Go right now to uscca.comsrs. As a parent, it's tempting to put your kids financial needs ahead of your own. But an often overlooked act of generosity is making sure they're protected in case something truly unexpected happens. That's where Fabric by Gerber Life and a term life insurance policy for you comes in. Fabric by Gerber Life is term life insurance you can get done today. Made for busy parents like you. All online and on your schedule. You could be covered in under 10 minutes with no health exam required. Fabric has flexible, highquality policies that fit your family and your budget. Like a million dollars in coverage for less than a dollar a day. You've heard me talk about Fabric for a while now because I know the importance of helping to protect my family's future with life insurance. It's my top priority. Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at meetfabric.com/shan. That's meetfabric.com/shan. mefabric.com/shan. Policies issued by Western Southern Life Insurance Company, not available in certain states. Prices subject to underwriting and health questions. Uh it's a great question and uh it it goes to a deeper conversation that uh would be fun to unpack uh even in our uh time together today. Um and it it it's rooted in human nature. But I suppose the most um iconic description of why was from President Eisenhower as he was leaving office where he said beware of the militaryindustrial complex. Now in his private conversations uh you know the Congress was a part of that the and so I I you know the the military-industrial congressional complex and and you know it it um it's human it's I say it's rooted in human nature because very good people can have good intentions and I'll describe it like this. uh we have a problem um and so uh as a nation and we need airplanes. So we build an airplane and it's the solution. Okay. And then everybody celebrates that solution. And then um then there are companies that build that solution in every state. And they have uh congressional caucuses that support that solution. And then they have lobbyists that those companies hire uh to to be in the halls of Congress whispering in the ears of the politicians that this is the only way. This is the way you go forward. Incrementally innovate in this solution. And and so there's let's say there's a new technology that makes uh the the the way we're building an airplane irrelevant, but it gets no oxygen because the lobbyists will whisper that's dangerous. Elon Musk has uh you know encountered this in spades. When he first started this idea of reusable rockets, people were laughing him off the stage. Gwyn Shotwell was laughed off the sta stage in uh in Asia in in in some of her early speeches about what they were going to do uh as you guys are Buck Rogers. You know, you're in fantasy land. This is uh this is not real. And you know, this is just a Ponzi scheme of trying to take people's money and and waste it until he proved it. But it took a lot of money to break through. Um, and uh, part of the reason is because there were a lot of people getting very rich at building a rocket to go to space and then burning that rocket up and having to build a whole new rocket. So, the analogy would be for all of us, imagine buying a car on the your favorite car on the lot and driving it until it runs out of gas and then you have to burn it to the ground and you have to go buy a new car to get back home. That is the economic model we were using to go to space and all it took is one innovator. But the amount of I I can remember in the military as we were supporting him. Uh we were supporting Elon Musk because this was going to be transformational to the next step of building infrastructure and space to support American interests um as this new domain was evolving. In other words, peace through strength. Mhm. Um, I would, uh, you know, the the leaders of the Air Force and of Congress would come to me and say, "Steve, see, you're wrong. Elon Musk blew up a rocket, you know, and and he's he's a fool, and we're not going to give him any money." But they were listening to lobbyists saying, "Elon Musk is a risk. You know, you you need us to build your rockets, and the only way to do this safely is to build it, launch it, and then let it burn up in the atmosphere." That and that's the trap of mindset. That's the trap of being stuck in an intellectual rut of how you've done things in the past and not being able to leap to something new because it succeeded for you in the past. So, why change? You know, if if it's not broken, don't fix it. Um, it goes back to another saying, everybody loves innovation as long as it's been done before. Man, it's so this is why we're stuck. Um, and and it but there's another side of it that's a little darker. Um and this gets back to what you do. Uh not that what you do is you are trying to find truth. Uh and we are living in an age where we are moving from an industrial age to aworked age and we're like teenagers and we don't have the tools to know what true truth is. Look at the AI. Look at look at uh the the lies in the narrative. Then uh we get social media that's like oh great now we can we can triangulate truth. we don't have to rely on just one news broadcast uh and believe the TV because we found the TV is lying to us. Uh but now those that understand that information is the most powerful weapon in the human race, that the most lethal weapon is right between your ears. And if I can influence what's going on between your ears in what you see is true and what reality is, I can shape that so that you act in my best interest, not in your best interests. And and so um part of what happens here is our government tells us stories about what is true, who's the bad guy, who's the good guy, here's why your tax money needs to go to this, here's why we need to um you know have inflation. Um and and we all believe it because we love our country and we don't want to be at war and we don't want uh insecurity. We want peace, prosperity and health for us and everybody on the planet. But there are perverse incentives for big companies and governments uh to weave a tail that deceives the population to perpetuate the wealth control and security of a very small group of people that are getting rich on the current methodology. So even though we may have solutions for the energy problem that include nuclear, that include solar power from space, that include helium 3, that include hydrogen, all these clean energy solutions, one of the reasons they don't move forward is the bureaucratic and the uh statutory um administrative state that thinks it's know it knows better than you and is getting rich off the lobbyists and the companies and the the the money into the coffers of the election system to perpetuate the way things were. The reason you are so important in this journey, meaning a place people can go and start learning the truth without falling victim to the the sound bites that perpetuate a lie, but actually spend time listening to a deeper conversation where the brain learns through stories. is because if we do not innovate, other countries will. And technology does change fate. Those that learn to harness the fire change the fate of their own security, prosperity, and health. Those that learn to harness electricity changed their fate for better prosperity, security, and health. and they could secure that future against those that would use fire or electricity as a weapon against you. And as we move into this electromagnetic spectrum domain, this this future where the electromagnetic spectrum can do everything we've seen done over the last 30 years. We cut the cable on the phone. We cut the cable on the TV. And soon we'll cut the cable on electricity. Wow. that electromagnetic spectrum and what we know about it and how we know how to manipulate it is is truly why we need to find truth. And if we because if we don't find truth, we continue to be slaves to the people that want us to believe that plugging your phone into the wall is the only way electricity works. and you know and uh taxation for uh uh incrementally innovating for an infrastructure that was built to win the last war but not investing in things that will win the next war. This is the trap of history and this is why no civilization has ever survived. They they go on this sine wave of uh birth in vigor and and critical thinking and aggressiveness at economic security and then military might to secure the peace. And then they get lazy and they lose it all and they're vanquished by another civilization. And this is what the great hope of America is, is that we can turn the tide of human nature that has created that cyclical sinewave of civilizations and we can start innovating again because if we don't, we're dead men walking. Man, I mean the energy stuff, I mean, I've dove into it a little bit. I don't know how much it was real. You know, there's all these rumors of free energy and stuff like that and the and the fact that um was it I don't know, was it the Rockefellers that that put us on the grid because they could meter it. Mhm. And you know, I never I don't really know a whole lot about it, but but it seems like all of the energy companies would be totally against beaming energy down from space because that just that unhooks you from the utilities like you were just saying. And so if in in I mean the amount of power and influence that energy companies, the oil, big oil and gas, all all of that stuff has over the over the US government, I mean, it's just it's alarming and it's not working. I mean, when when I talk to these guys like yourself and they're talking about the data centers that we need to feed our AIS and stuff and where the hell are we going to get this energy from? Yeah. Yeah. No, it uh you're right. It uh it can be a concern because the incentive structure for the current companies that are getting rich on the current um technology set um are not motivated to change. They're not motivated to take risk. Uh but but um but that can change. Uh and for example um when I was uh the commander of Joint Base San Antonio down in um Texas um and uh we we we started something uh there called the electromagnetic defense initiative. And the reason I started it is because the um the the war fighting capability of a base is only as good as the feeder veins into that base of energy, transportation, food, water, you know, the essentials of life to to fight from that location. And the energy grid, as you pointed out, is a civ and is vulnerable and can be taken out with uh one good marksman and knowing right where to shoot at the transformer. Um and so we started something uh to uh to demonstrate to the power companies that one they they could affordably make their power grids resilient to electromagnetic pulse whether it's man-made or from the sun. But we all I also talked to him about what we were doing with the uh the Air Force research lab and the X37 to demonstrate this ability to take the sun's energy in space uh convert it to radio waves beam it down to earth and then convert it back into electricity at the point of the rectenna that receives it. Just like you receive broadband from Elon Musk's Starlink and now you have broadband anywhere on your camper in the middle of the Hindu Kush or the Colorado Rockies. The same is true with electricity. Wow. And and they actually like the idea. The CEO level is like that's great. Uh you know Saudi Arabia that is uh you know the oil uh is eventually not going to be there. What do they invest in? Solar power from space could be one of them. Nuclear could be one of them. India uh the the last leadership team of India was about ready to go full boore into solar power from space. So it's it's not that they aren't willing to see the business case and if they can see the business case they'll start maneuvering so that they are going to where the money will be not where the money was or the money is but we also have uh the fact that uh many of these CEOs will say well until the government gives me a contract to do this for the country you know I I'm getting rich in the current method and we're not going to take a lot of business risk. It it's a two-edged sword. You need visionary leaders in these companies to also be willing to move forward incrementally to make our power grid resilient now so it's not so vulnerable because we're all victims of vulnerability on the electricity. If we don't have it, chaos breaks out. And to start carving a path to new markets and new technologies um to deliver things with greater capability at lower cost. And this is again going back to space. Why space is so important. If you don't have companies like Spaceuilt, the the one that I started with Dennis Wingo uh as as the the key brain that knows how to build space technology for this infrastructure and the capability to build in space that doesn't just run out of gas and become space junk, but is a perpetual business case of construction and logistics in space. The reason we're doing this is because this helps usher in if you have leaders that are innovative and that understand the tapestry of politics of lobbyists and you can navigate a company like Elon Musk did and now you can have satellites at a fraction of the cost. You can reduce the cost of satellites 10x and they're reusable just like Elon Musk made the cost of launch reduced 10x and they're reusable. It's like aviation to space. uh this is how you break through and it's generally in America it's the private sector this is how we can do it and this is how you can start convincing companies the big electric companies to start moving into the future using all of these other uh and and space will bring us helium 3 energy what is helium 3 energy yeah so um helium 3 is an element that doesn't get to earth very much because our atmosphere and our gravitational field prevent it from landing on the earth. So an ounce of helium 3 on the earth is very very expensive and it the business case doesn't uh really close. But on the moon or on the asteroids there's a ton of helium 3. And so to give you an example of what it means, if we were to mine the moon for helium 3, we could at the current level of electricity use in America or not in America on in the globe, we could we could power the energy needs of the human race for thousands of years based on the helium 3 that's on the moon right now. And um there there and and so the twist there is China is there on the moon on the far side of the moon. We don't know what they're doing because we don't have infrastructure up there to even see what's going on. But we do know they're mining helium 3. And so we legitimately don't know what China is doing on the other side of the moon. No, we don't. Because the other side of the moon, you know, most people may not know this, but you you only see one side of the moon in the way that it it rotates and orbits around the Earth. It's a very interesting phenomenon in orbital mechanics, but it's um um and so unless we have a constellation of satellites flying around the moon that can see and and u and and understand what's going on, we're blind and that's one reason they're over there. Um but but uh let me give you a a commercial. So upset, Steve. Yeah, I'm getting real upset. So, but so this goes back to a strategy and why I'm in the space business because space is the place where if America does not change our strategy and how we're investing in space, we will become victims to others that use space as a way of dominating the energy market or but also uh the the information market. U so here's an example. About a month ago, Microsoft announced their quantum computing capability, which is just next level and awesome, but they need to cool it down to uh 80 ml, which basically is almost down to the point where the molecules don't even move. Okay. Um there's really no way to cool it efficiently down to that level. Helden would only get you down to maybe one Kelvin. you need to go, you know, uh, much lower than that. Helium 3 can do it like that. So, let's take the scenario where China now has, uh, enough helium 3 as they're mining it on the moon and bringing it back to Earth to be able to power the entire world for thousands of years. And they are the ones that can actually operationalize quantum because they can cool it down to the temperature it needs to actually operate. Now quantum sensing, quantum communication uh you know when you start uh looking at uh and quantum computing when you start combining those three quantum capabilities sensing computing communication and you can affordably cool it down to the levels where it can be operationalized. Now you've broken every code that ever was. I don't care how good your encryption is. They see every secret, every code, everything, you know, from Bitcoin to uh you know uh things like uh you know the uh the techniques of blockchain, forget it. It's all going to change. And so there's an example of why not being in space with logistics and infrastructure to be able to move, to see, and to operate I I can make you a vulner make you vulnerable. How long has China been on the far side of the moon? Well, we, you know, it's been quite a while. Uh they, you know, you can look back, it's been uh at least 2 years. Um and you know, uh the the the problem here is the the in in my view um it is that we do not have a sense of how dramatically things will change with these technologies that are in space. We build better satellites than anybody on the planet. Okay? We build better fighters, tanks, ships, submarines. We we build really cool stuff better than anybody else in the world in in many cases. Uh there are exceptions of course, but what beats good technology is a superior strategy. So, China may not they may be a fast follower where they look a lot like our F-22 in their fighters. They look a lot like Elon Musk's uh you know uh rocket ships. Uh they may be a fast follower but they aren't interested in making better technology. They are building a strategy of logistics and infrastructure in space uh that will that will change the game for the energy and information market on earth. And we are on a strategy that uh builds better satellites to do the same things we've done before. And there are efforts to do these other things, but it's not fueled by the kind of money to operationalize it and really compete. This is why um you know strategy eats technology for lunch. Man, this is uh really alarming. I mean, who knows what they're doing over there. We we well we know legitimately we know they're mining, okay? We know they're bringing back because we can we can see what they're bringing back and this is all open source. We can you know in open source you can see some of the things that China's doing. Um and uh and and so we have evidence of of some of the things they're doing but we we don't know uh the extent uh and uh and that's part of the problem. And this goes back to why truth and information is the most important element because you know it's back to sunsu in the art of war. Know thy enemy, know thyself. And if you are deceived in your own arrogance and your own dominance of the past that what you did in the past is sufficient to win in the future, eventually you're going to be a dead man. And if you do not know your enemy well enough, not just on the technical side, but the cultural side. And this is why having been raised in Africa uh is has been very valuable for me because being raised in a tribe with no American influence and then coming here at the age of 10 and then being immersed in Los Angeles where my dad was the pastor of a church um um gave me a lens at this cultural misunderstanding and how we talk past each other and it's been very valuable like in the military the army talks past the air force talks past the navy talks past special forces talks past the coast guard and to be able to see that and help people connect where they're actually talking to one another and listening to one another is key. But the same is happening here with technologies and China. We as an American society uh tend to just believe our own press and and think that our way of thinking is dominant. Um and um and it has worked. But if we don't understand China's cultural mindset, uh we could end up being a victim to it. Now, it's really important here to state two facts. One, the Chinese people are beautiful. The Russian people are beautiful. People in every culture are just beautiful people. But whenever you are under a governance um rule set that steals away freedom, steals away freedom of choice, which is something I believe has been planted in the hearts of every human being and the Bible tells us and God is clear. Free choice, free will. This is how we know whether you're good or bad. If you have no freedom, I don't know if your heart is good or is bad because you don't make any choices. You're being forced to make choices that uh you know Mhm. And and so when I see uh systems like communism, socialism that have a historical precedence rooted in human nature of murdering its own people in order to maintain control and taking away personal freedom. Um, this is why we have to be so careful and why what you're doing is at the core of our survival as a nation because free will is predicated on understanding truth. You you got to know what's going on in your strategic environment or again you're not you're not free. You're making a decision that has been shaped in your brain by somebody that's trying to get you to do something in their interest and you're actually doing something counter to your own self-interest. So in order to understand what China is doing, what Russia is doing and what is going on in the world, we have to be able to understand truth and truth has been morphed and mutated. In fact, um the the information domain is now a battle space. We used to believe the TV and when we found out the TV was lying to us and our government was lying to us, then social media and this new technology came about and we're like, "Oh, starting to rush there. How do I triangulate truth here? And now we see that um liars and uh and storytellers that are trying to get us to believe something that is not true have infiltrated the social media and the even the podcast uh world. So I I say we're like teenagers in this information age and we still don't have the tools to triangulate truth quickly enough to be able to not make mistakes and drive ourselves o off our own cliff. And so our our society is in in a very vulnerable place right now where we're trying to hunt and and this is why you're so valuable because you are taking the time to talk to multiple people to understand where the truth lies and uh it's it's it's incredibly important. Thank you. I can't I can't get my mind off of China being on the other side of the moon for years and we have not sent anything up there. I mean, how does that just slide past a president's desk? Hey, we got this. We got China over here. Our biggest adversary, biggest potential adversary. You might want to take a look at this. Well, I this president uh President Trump understands this. He does. He does. Well, that's good. And and in fact, he understood it in his first term, and this is why he was willing to put up with the ridicule, sarcasm, and humiliation that came with saying, "We are going to create a space force." That space force, when we look back 300 years from now, the legislation that President Trump championed to get a space force written into law will be the wedge in history that protects America. without that. Now, even though uh the last four years the the the the the government, the executive branch has not allowed the Space Force to build what it needs to protect us. So, they kind of went into idle as soon as President Trump came into office. He's going to put that into full afterburner and we're going to start seeing um what what the country really needs. And it goes back to again what great uh warriors of the past have done. And and and what I'll say is great warriors of the past are peacemakers. President Trump is a peacemaker. When he rebuilds the military, it is not for the purpose of warfare. It is the purpose of peace through strength. Because if you don't have the credibility and the will to use force against somebody evil that is trying to kill human nature, kill freedom and this innate God-given important gift of free will, then people will just walk all over you. Yeah. You have to be unapologetic. And so what you're going to see now is you're going to see America start developing something that's really important. So I'll go back to Alexander the Great. Uh one of the quotes that's most attributed to him, but it actually goes back even further is um in the art of war, amateurs talk about weapons and tactics. So planes, ships, tanks, submarines, satellites. Professionals talk about logistics. Because warfare is not about shock and awe. It's not about a decisive battle that is inconsistent with human nature and culture. Ushering in a peaceful future is about an economic journey where you can outlast your adversary at trying to do something bad and you strike the fear of God into them that if they do something bad, you're going to hold them accountable. It is an economic thing. National security is downstream from economics and economics is downstream from our values and values are downstream from our beliefs and our worldview and we are moral creatures. Okay? God made us as moral creatures. So if you have a governance system like communism that does not believe in a god, it will eventually crumble as it tries to control people. But our Constitution is so unique in history. And this is why I'm so excited about being alive at this time. And why we should be so happy to be able to usher in a more prosperous, healthy, and secure future where all people on the planet have a chance to live free and with free will because we have a constitution rooted in a worldview that there is a God. And he has planted in our hearts certain things that are essential like free will. And we have values of loving our God first and our neighbors as God loves us. And then policies and an economy that thrives on this ability for people to act and do and try the free economy. It's our superpower as an American society based on these values and on this world view. And then downstream of that is our national security, the tools we build. But it's about the economy. And if we can build an infrastructure in space of logistics that is more affordable than our adversaries, we can defend ourselves and outlast anybody that tries to use space as a weapon against us. And we can usher in peace. That's why I started this company. And that's why space is such a critical pivotal point in the future that most people don't recognize yet. Yeah, man. Well said. Well said. Let's move back to some of the technology. So, let's you had mentioned we have the technology to be able to protect our power grid from EMP poles. Mhm. How how would we do that? Yeah. So um again our current grid our current power grid is built like a Frankenstein. I mean it is cobbled together. Um and you know like some of the big transformers take two years to build and they are built as it's an artisan thing. I mean it takes two years for artists to put it together and they're built in China. Well, yeah. I mean, many of the components are built in China. And again, uh this is all open source, but it's it's even more frightening than that uh with regard to what China uh has uh and what they've built both in our nuclear power plants and in our power grid. So, there there's that component of it. Uh but what we did in San Antonio with this uh this uh cooperation between a private power company, power, you know, CPS Energy and the military and the Department of Energy and the Department of Homeland Security is show and prove out on a circuit that that that if you bring in just the technologies that have been developed in our federally funded research labs like Sandia and Livermore and uh you know and uh all of the different places where we invest in technologies, you can you can apply very inexpensive technologies to your current power grid, even though it's kind of a Frankenstein to avoid it from being destroyed for two years based on an electromagnetic pulse that goes through it. And there, you know, there's two sources primarily of an electromagnet pulse. One is the sun. Most people may not realize that back in 1859, the only thing we really had that was vulnerable to an electromagnetic pulse was a telegraph, but we had a Carrington event, which is basically a sun flare. And so there's a plasma wave that starts coming to the earth. And depending on how the earth is rotating, this one happened to hit as the North American face was uh hitting the plasma field. And it melted every telegraph plunger in America as 3,000 volts went through every telegraph line. And so in some of our museums, we have those melted telegraph plungers that reveal how catastrophic it was. And that telegraph plunger system was hundred times more resilient than some of the SKA systems we have now in our cars and in our electrical grid. But some of these technologies 100 times more resilient. Oh yeah. We are so much more vulnerable than the telegraph. Cuz the telegraph, you know, was basically just a a brass or, you know, a metal thing where you you punched it down and when it made contact, uh, it was sending, you know, a a a signal through the power line and you did Morris code, you know, dot dot dot dash. Uh, now our SCADA systems can, you know, would not survive even the smallest electromagnetic pulse. So, one of those are going to is going to happen again. I mean, it's just a matter of time. The percentages are are high, and we haven't had one since 1859. We had a scare in 2013. Uh, but it ended up um, you know, um, you know, not not being a significant event and in the North American uh, you know, North America was not part of the the plasma wave, but it's going to happen. And the only question is whether we can adapt quickly enough. So, I know I'm down a little rabbit hole here on the power grid, but uh to go to the question you asked, and that is that uh we we can make it resilient to electromagnetic pulses with some of these technologies that are affordable. And as we are demonstrating how affordable it is in San Antonio with this electromagnetic defense initiative, which is now a White House Hallmark program, other energy Yeah. Other energy companies are looking at that saying, "Okay, I can do this now and I can now protect my grid and I can market my electricity as being resilient." But there's another piece of this that's really important to note and we don't have to go into detail on it, but uh there was an article just the other day uh on this that uh I can send you. um some of our um uh other competition in the world uh have developed these tactical electromagnetic pulse weapons, meaning that a guy with a backpack or a satellite um can actually point something at, let's say, a fleet of F-35s on the ramp and and and and strike a jolt of electricity that can fuse those SCADA systems and those computers. our dependency on electrons and electricity is very very vulnerable except for our nuclear forces and and because it's expensive to harden things uh for that kind of event. So now we have mother nature as a potential threat to a very vulnerable dependent or dependency that we have grown because of efficiency. We've grown to be very dependent on electricity and it's very vulnerable because we wanted to make it as cheap as possible and now it could become an existential threat to our society if people use that vulnerability as a place to attack us. That's why I started the electromagnetic defense initiative because our bases were vulnerable to electricity that was not guaranteed and we couldn't rely on backup generators if we couldn't have transportation for fuel to get it into the gate. We have that technology too. Correct. those many I mean that are you familiar with Eperis? Yes. Is it is that what you're talking about? Something like that. Yes. So yeah. So there's no question that we are investigating these things. Um and uh but but here's one of the things that you know gets in the way. We overclassify everything. I mean, in in the bureaucracy of our government, uh, a, you know, a 22year-old kid that's brand new to the military as a lieutenant can classify something top secret and then takes an act of Congress to get it back down to where it needs to be. So, we are so overclassified and and compartmentalized uh, that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand's talking about. And so often so often times what will happen is Congress will ask this same question as we're talking to Congress about this risk to America. They'll say, "Well, I just talked to uh this, you know, four-star general and and they told me that they're working on it." And they are, but when you take a look at the money, it's like a little experiment up at the Air Force Research Lab that has, you know, like, you know, $300,000 when China is pending a billion dollars on the very same thing. So the road to operational, the road to commercial, the road to making something that is useful to our economy um is it requires money and it takes leadership to innovate. This goes back to your innovation question. Why aren't we innovating on some of these things? Well, some of them require the government to actually put its thumb on the scale, and they aren't putting enough money on the scale to compete with those that see what it could do and are putting a lot of money on the scale. I I mean, I I don't even How do you fix this? How do you fix how do you frame the mindset of Congress, the Senate, whoever's sitting as president, all of his staff? I mean, how do you how do you create that mindset within there? Well, I so [ __ ] corrupt. It is uh you know, and uh so all you have to do is take a look at uh what President Trump is saying and what he is doing. um you you you first of all fix it by um providing an opportunity for the American people to see what's going on. This truthtelling, you know, what is really going on here? Because again, the people have been lied to about all kinds of things. Uh they've been lied to about the history. Um and uh and and and many of those lies perpetuate these infinite wars we're in that President Trump is trying to stop by revealing the truth. So it starts by triangulating the truth. And this is why I give you such um um admiration and respect for the fact that you uh and the way you evolved into what you're doing right now is actually hitting at the root because we could build all the technology in the world. But if our people are still lied to about what that technology is going to be used to do, we just perpetuate the problem. All technology can be used for good or evil, but it can only be used for good if the American people know what's going on and they can hold their their politicians accountable for the policies and the decisions that are either consistent with our values and our beliefs that I talked about before where we do not bring harm to other people. We uplift the human condition. We usher in prosperity, peace and security, not war and violence and instability and uh and and uh the technologies of our age. I I think about it like a flashlight. If we do this right, even with quantum, if we if we can operationalize quantum or we can operationalize truth discovery in the current model of the internet and of the techniques for communication we have. It's like shining a flashlight on all the dark corners of history and of the world right now where evil can hide. They can enslave people. They can traffic people. They can launder money. uh they can um the corruption can thrive in the dark corners. But if we believe there are more people on the planet that are good and would rather love their neighbor than kill their neighbor, we can gang up on this small number of evil people that are prioritizing their own control, their own money, and their own security by enslaving others. And this is why it's personal for me because I got to see this in Africa and the tribe I grew up in. The African continent has been enslaved and the hero system has been crushed and crippled. And it continues to be crippled as tyrants and desperates keep the people of Africa enslaved with a lack of information, with weaponizing the economy, both electricity, food, and water. And the moment we can provide a device for people in my tribe to be able to see the truth that's going on around them and bypass those that control the information systems, they can stop now start organizing and throwing off these shackles of slavery. But I would tell you my study of history and technology and human nature and this lens I have been blessed with by growing up in one culture without western influence and then coming to a culture uh in Los Angeles of not only western prosperity but also uh the corruption of the gangs and the drugs and all the other things that were in the underbelly of that LA society that I went into. Um, I will tell you that um, we we truly do have the potential of throwing this off and that the good people of this world have access to truth and they can organize and throw this corruption into the prisons or into the trash heap of history. It will never go away totally because there will always be evil people. Mhm. But this is why I say it is so damn exciting to be alive today because we are in the middle of an epic change. And most epic changes are riddled with violence and destruction like going from the uh kingdoms and the surfoms into the industrial age and the industrial age and World War I and World War II into the information age. We have a leader in President Trump that is trying to usher in a change where the American people are not lied to anymore by um people that want to maintain control. that we revive the economy uh to build a a golden age truly by unleashing these innovations that have been snuffed out and quenched and thrown a blanket on because of the military-industrial congressional complex of lobbyists lying to congressional members and congressional members uh fearful of their political future taking money into their coffers of election and ignoring the technology because they're not willing to stand up to the their people and say there's a better way we can shine a light on all this corruption. And it's amazing how the spirit of innovation and renewal and revival and uh and and uh and even forgiveness uh can be ushered in with information that's in the pocket of every human being on the planet. I love that. you know, I was just I don't want to mention his name or his company, but I was just um spent some time with autonomous vehicles and are becoming a huge thing. Yeah. And this guy is he's he's developing surface warfare autonomous vehicles. Not one human on board at all. and he's he is I mean I think he's on to something but he can't get he's having trouble switching people's mindset because they're so used to having to have humans on there and it's it's not taking the you know first I was kind of against it cuz I was like oh well this is AI making all our decisions and how does this end up but through the guys that I've interviewed and the individual that I'm talking about I mean it's still going to come down to the huge human decision point where AI kind of displays, you know, here's the possible here's the possible courses of action. Here's the probability of us winning here's the here's the potential consequences to each thing and it's all given to you in a matter of hours maybe less rather than days, weeks from analysts going through everything. But he was talking to me and telling me that it's it's been challenging trying to get the government to buy off on these autonomous vehicles, whether it's a surface warfare, subs, whoever, or whatever. And and they want they want a they want a blended model where they still have humans on board the ships. and he's totally against it. He's like, "Well, then there's that creates human error and they have to be heavier because we need hallways, we need bathrooms, we need chow halls, we need all this other [ __ ] on these on these autonomous warfare vehicles. But if we don't have any humans on board, then we can cut the cost down, make them a lot lighter, which which which they can carry more fuel, go farther without needing to to be refueled." And and to me, it's it's it's it's it just seems like a no-brainer. Like I I realize this reshapes our entire military from the Army to the Air Force to the Navy. Everything gets reshaped and in and the need for a a mass a big number of or a big percentage of our population to be able to we may not need that anymore. Yeah. And I I I think that's a good thing, but they cannot switch their mindset and see the benefit that this kind of stuff brings. And it is it's just frustrating to hear this stuff. So this is um you know, it's a great point. Uh and it it reveals the fact that culture is stronger. You know, culture eats technology and strategy for lunch. Meaning it's the fear, it's the change uh that most people are not willing to adapt to. until uh they see a reason. Uh but with AI, it's also the fear of the unknown. All new technologies have seen like seemed like magic to people and they fear them. Um, if if if I if we were sitting here in 1898 and you went to work on your horse and you fueled, you know, you lit your house with a candle and you uh heated your home with a wood burning stove and I told you that in less than a hundred years, uh, there'd be two cars in every garage. Uh, an automobile hadn't really, you know, you know, it hadn't become mainstream. We'd be flying to places on the planet and and, you know, in hours. um not months or years. Um and uh we'd have a man on the moon and uh and you'd have a computer in your pocket uh that and they'd say, "What is a computer?" They would have thought that you were it was magic or it was witchcraft or worse. Um that um and the same is true in the human psyche. We so these cultural journeys are hard but but there's a there's a you know there there's always an element of truth of the in these fears and the element of truth is that they they they are worried that AI will not be moral um and in some ways they're correct meaning um there are two things that any expert will tell you about AI uh and that is one uh they can never foresee any time that it will be truly creative or visionary that these are things unique that God has given to the human brain that is the most super computer ever built and that all AI uh is just it looks creative and it looks visionary because it's so damn fast and can gobble up so much information so quickly but it is not truly uh creative and and you can prove that uh as you use AI more and more and I encourage people to use AI because they'll start recognizing what AI looks like and they'll be able the human brain and the the natural intuition and spidey senses we have as human beings is so far beyond uh the technology that uh you know you don't have to fear it and and the more we use it the less we'll be afraid of it and the less we will allow ourselves to trust it in places we shouldn't trust it but the reason why he's right your friend is because we can we we can have act a human being can have access to that environment the context of what's going on with that ship or that plane or that satellite. Um, without having to physically be there and shackle it with all the human life support requirements that make it too slow, too expensive, too heavy, all the things that don't make it uh faster, stronger, smarter than the than the adversary and and affordability where you can sustain operations uh longer than your competition. um you can still be there uh with a human moral mind for the context of what's happening for decisions that are based on morality. Now you can you can program u your values into the AI. You know I encourage people to take Grock or whatever you know version you want and um and tell it okay here are my values. I I want everything you provide me uh to be based on these values of the respect for human life, you know, the respect for cultural uniqueness, the all the anything you want to put in there, the ten commandments, you know, um and um but even that uh the more you use it, the more AI will start confirming your biases, you know. Uh the thing that strikes me is I um am talking with people uh that use AI a lot and they'll say, "Steve, you know, um I my AI is telling me that I am now 99.9% correct on my opinion that this is true." And I I you know in places where I have unique knowledge on that opinion, I'll tell them I can tell you 100% that you're wrong. But the AI is going to try to align with you. You know, it's programming itself to be your pet and to tell you what you want to hear if you have not specifically programmed it to tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. So it is such a dangerous uh environment that requires critical thinking and AI is only one piece of this triangulation of truth. Uh the most important piece is human contact talking with another human being and even that is imperfect because if if I am meeting with somebody and they are lying to me out of their heart it oftenimes takes time with that person to start discovering that they are actually lying to me. But you can do that too if you are a critical thinker and you're good at asking the right questions and that you are your critical thinking has a natural intellectual curiosity and suspicion that people can lie to you believing that lie. Mhm. Because of the selfdeception. So this gets back to the other qualities of character that are essential as we are in this epic change of an industrial age to aworked age where space is going to be the dominant uh environment. It will be an economy uh bigger than air, land, and sea combined. And we can get to why I believe that will be true in a moment. But it comes down to affordability and infrastructure and aworked effect. But um but it is essential for us to force the physical contact with people of conversation. This is why your podcast is so important because a a snippet or even a clip from the Hillsdale speech is not enough to really talk about uh these technologies what they mean like getting anywhere on the planet in less than an hour. I want to tell you why that happens, how that happens because it will demystify it. It's not teleport teleporting. I make a guess. I want to guess. I've thought about I spent a lot of time thinking about this and I want to go back to the AI thing but but actually can we let's hold this until after the break but I just you know I just uh interviewed Alexander Wang uh scale AI started scale AI and I didn't understand a lot about AI um before that interview and so when it comes to AI developing consciousness and all these kind of things that that a lot of people are worried about. I mean, we are the ones feeding the this is why these databases are so important is because we are feeding all the information that's feeding the AI is from humans. And so we're feeding the data centers with all of the information that the AI is able to process so fast. And basically, it's just it's speeding up our decision-m process. And so in like I like I had mentioned before instead of waiting days, weeks, maybe a month to make a decision, I mean the all the all of the data that goes into the decision-m is done damn near immediately. And so now the now I think the fear is, you know, with these AI wars, we talked a lot about AI wars and how many AIs China has versus how many AIs the US has and those AIs go to war. if they were able to hack the database that feeds our AIs and put false data or or data that that increases the probability of them winning by feeding us [ __ ] information, then then there there lies the problem. But but Steve, let's take a let's take a quick break. Okay. when we come back, I I have I have my own theory on how this works and I wanna I want to see if I'm correct. That sounds good. And then we can talk about why uh you know the AI conversation is also going back to the root of triangulating truth and how we as human beings uh keep our hand on the Bible of truth and it's about human contact uh and and so we can survive this dangerous time where people believe AI and AI can take us off the cliff because it can be deceived and it can be nothing more than a perpetuation of our biases. And it's the old saying, crap in, crap out. Perfect. All right, let's take a break. Okay, man. This is fascinating. It's amazing how enhanced our kitchen feels now that we've been using Hexclad. All of the pans we used before Hexclad were extremely hard to clean. Hexclad has really elevated my family's cooking game. Hexclad pans have the performance of stainless steel and the convenience of non-stick in one pan. They're oven safe, dishwasher safe, and so simple to wipe clean. They have a patented Hexagon design that protects against scratches even when using metal utensils. And if you're looking for more than just pots and pans, Hexclad has precision engineered knives that are made of 67 layers of Japanese Damascus steel for sharp edges and effortless slicing. And don't forget, Hexclad products come with a lifetime warranty built to last a lifetime. For a limited time only, for our listeners, get 10% off your order with our exclusive link. Just head to hexclad.com/srs. Support our show and check them out at hex.com/srs. Make sure to let them know we sent you Bonapetit Let's Eat with Hexclad's revolutionary cookware. Did you know Fast Growing Trees is the biggest online nursery in the US? With thousands of different plants and over 2 million happy customers, Fast Growing Trees makes it easy to get your dream yard. Order online and get your plants delivered directly to your door in just a few days without ever leaving home. Their Alive and Thrive guarantee ensures your plants arrive happy and healthy. Plus, get support from trained plant experts on call to help you plan your landscape and learn how to care for them. I've learned so much and the plants they sent me look amazing. I'm ordering oak trees to plant at my new studio and I can't wait to show you. This spring, they have the best deals for your yard. Up to half off on select plants and other deals. And listeners of our show get 15% off their first purchase when using the code SRS at checkout. That's an additional 15% off at fastgrowingtreees.com using the code SRS at checkout. Now's the perfect time to plant. Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. Go to fastgrowingtreees.com for details. All right, Steve. So, I've thought a lot about this. So, is this the only way I can think of it is if we shoot straight up into space and the Earth's rotation, the Earth rotates and then we come back down. Is that how we do it? Well, the Earth's rotation does play a part uh in how much time it takes, but um think of it um like a fish in the water. Okay, if you're a fish swimming in the ocean, uh you can go a certain uh velocity and that's your life. You know, you just that's all you know. But if if you could elevate into the air and go, uh you would be like this is impossible how quickly I can move. Okay, the air is also a medium like the water. It's just less dense. But those air molecules are real. We just can't see them. And when you get up into the edge of space, the higher you go, the fewer molecules. So imagine the globe and imagine u getting into a rocket ship and going up. You don't even have to go all the way to space. You go up a certain altitude and there are so few molecules of air that now as you turn and start going around the earth, you can move at Mach 20, you know, at speeds that are you can't even fathom if you're a fish in the water. Uh because there are no molecules of air to create the heat or slow you down, the friction that slows you down because the water is friction, the air is friction. We know that as re-entry, you know, and the heat shields u from spacecraft coming back into the earth's atmosphere. Um, and so this has been demonstrated. We did this in the uh early 90s uh as President Reagan uh was developing uh Star Wars technology. We proved this out back then and it's one of the foundations of why Elon Musk, you knew that reusability was actually something you could do and he was going to commercialize it. um we demonstrated long and so what happens is let's go you know from here where we're at in Nashville to Singapore. Okay. Um it only takes about six or seven minutes to get up to the place where there's almost no molecules of air. You turn and at Mach 20 it only takes you, you know, 10 15 minutes to get over Singapore. And then you decelerate and come back down in 7 minutes and you're there in less than an hour. Wow. You can do it, you know. And so it's it's nothing more than just physics and the reality that we have the technology to have reusable rockets that go up, go across, and come back down. And we've done this. We've done it not with humans in um in the the craft, but Elon Musk is going to do this. In fact, it's actually a number of years ago he put out a video of what uh his Starship will do as a transportation vehicle. Um and u you know one one of the fun parts of my job was connecting dots. So I had Gwen Shotwell sit down with uh the fourstar in charge of transportation command for America and uh talk about this so that now you know you could put 100 tons of people and equipment anywhere on the planet in less than an hour and sustain it with reusable rockets that can go and do that all day long. Think about what that means for the logistics of power projection in America where if some country is in trouble or somebody is in trouble, you can get masses of amounts of stuff to them in reasonable amounts of time. How was that received? How did that conversation go? Well, it goes back to the cultural piece. You know, people will look at something and say, "Sounds great, but uh you know, it's not my job." you know, let let industry build it and then I'll figure it out. You know, there's a lot of fear in leaders uh doing things the way things have always been done. U the the risk you take, the bureaucratic risk you take is just one piece of it where you have to actually be willing to know the law, know the regulations, and be able to operate within your authority and responsibility to innovate. But there's another thing that that goes on and know I have personal experience on this and it's this sense of belonging. I mean we are we are creatures that belong to one another. We are moral creatures that belong to God and we belong to one another. That's why we have tribes like the tribe I grew up in and our loyalties to our sports team to your unit. Uh we would live and die for our sense of belonging. And if if the sense of survival were more powerful than the sense of belonging, nobody would jump on a hang grenade in a foxhole for their brothers, but they do because they feel that sense of belonging so powerfully that I would die for you. And we do it in the military all the time. And it is a beautiful thing. And it's what God gave us, a sense of belonging. But even something good like that can be used by Satan for bad. And um but it also can be a trap. So if I'm a fighter pilot and I am in the Air Force and I say that the strategic investment is to not have a person in the cockpit of a machine that doesn't have enough gas or enough weapons to go the distance and and get the job done. that we should invest in machines that don't have a human being in it connected with sufficient awareness so that a human being can make the decision if it's a moral decision and um and now I have been ostracized from the entire tribe I belong to of fighter pilots that are celebrating the heritage of scarf around their neck you know but it happened it happens all the time in World War II uh the beginning of World War II. Um, you know, it's a great story in a in a book called uh Fast Tanks and heavy bombers, which is the oxymoron title that uh uh but but it it it it describes how why we don't innovate and the cultural reasons why we don't innovate. Back to one of your central questions, you know, the the um the horse on the battlefield was the key element of rapid maneuver before World War II. Even though uh people like Church Hill and others had been screaming for mechanization for years, it was very slow and coming and it was not it was little trickle of money, not not big money like uh the Germans did for Blitz Creek. And so as they studied um and so every army officer was required to have equestrian lessons, you know, you you had to know how to manage horses and deal with horses in the military because that was that was the big thing. Um and when the question was asked, what how are you going to beat uh the tanks of Blitzkrieg? Um they did the studies and one of the my favorite studies that shows how hard it is for us to change and how hard it is to give up our tribal allegiances to the way we've always done it on the horseback as a soldier or in a cockpit of a fighter aircraft as a fighter pilot or on the deck of a battleship as a Navy captain. Um we we can be so biased and so stuck in a mindset the the we can make any study say anything we want really if we're that biased and and and that decept. So the report that's one of my favorites that is chronicled in this book is the report that basically came back and all the psychologists and all the experts said if you take the horse off the battlefield the IQ of the soldier will plummet. that the horse is essential and it should be our main strategic effort to beat mechanization. Uh uh and and it went further to say the way we solve it is uh we we put the horses in trailers and carry them to the front line and then they will be fresh and they will be able to outmaneuver the tanks and kill them from behind. And they used evidence like the tank can't get through trees or it can't get over tough mountains and the horse can. Uh so there's always evidence that can uh confirm your bias. Uh but uh General Marshall was smart enough and had the power of the presidency and FDR behind him uh where when General her the HR the twoar in charge of the cavalry at the time presented that this report that said the way to win against Blitzkrieg is to have a better horse and you know more more stuff on the horse and using the horse in a better way. incremental innovation. Uh General Marshall essentially started uh uh investing more heavily in mechanization but even the mechanization was tough. They turned to uh Kenson who was the most brilliant industrialist of the age you know working with Ford and Chrysler and some of the big mechanization just brilliant man. And he went to the army he was hired to help us mechanize. He went to the army and said what do you need? and the army didn't know. That's how stuck we can get in the tribalism and the heritage. So you So how would it feel for you to be ostracized from your all the people that you feel a belonging to? It's very lonely and in fact it is devastating. But this is what innovators put up with. I mean they'd say it's it's lonely at the top. It's a component of that. But innovation also has that. It is um you are ostracized from those. How dare you? You are traitor to the fighter pilot community if you don't think a fighter aircraft is the solution and you're dealing with that. I mean I've I've dealt with it probably on a much smaller scale. I mean when I started this I got a lot of a lot of hate. Yeah. And um and it you know it did feel very alone and then as it grew it all came back together. Yeah. But um maybe not for the right reasons, you know, but um I mean I mean it's people's wants and desires and sure what I can bring them uh just through the creation of what me and my team built here. But um but so you're you're I mean I got to tell one thing that I've noticed about innovators, people like yourself, you guys all know your history. I mean just what you just spouted off right there about World War II and and you Eric Princemer all these guys. You guys I don't know where you get it all from but it's it's you learn from history. you do and and and so kudos to you. Well, you're doing the same thing, but it goes back to there's nothing new under the sun and everything is rooted in human nature. So, if you understand human nature and culture and history and the lessons that have happened, as long as the history is true, that's another thing you have to work for. Uh you you you can navigate a better future. But it requires this uh uh cur intellectual curiosity and a aggressive learning where you actually put in the time to study your history and you triangulate truth with that too. You read history books written from different people in different perches around the world, different cultures around the world, uh to try to get after the bias that is written by the victors because the victors always write at making themselves look like they are the heroes of the world when in reality they may not have been totally. And you have to be honest with yourself about not uh wanting to be the hero of the story. Truth is the hero of the story. I mean, how are how I'm just curious, how are you dealing with that with what we just talked about. I mean, these are some pretty outlandish claims in your speech. I mean, and then I looked into your background and and we were like, "No, like this guy is 100% legit." But it there are some outlandish claims that that just go right over the top of people's heads. Yeah. And so, I mean, how do you deal with that with everything that you're doing? The the first thing is to um you know u be humble enough to anchor yourself in the fact that the only the only person that matters uh is God you know that uh and and if you don't have that if you aren't grounded in the fact that uh you are uh moral, ethical, legal, honest uh and and God is your judge and you can't lie to God. you can't deceive God, you know, and uh and then you surround yourself with people that keep you honest and keep you humble where it's not about you, okay? It's about God's will. It's about glorifying God ultimately. That's that moral center, you know, where our worldview is that there is a God and that God loves us and he asks us to love one another as much as he loves us. Um so if you have that as a grounding, you can weather all of this stuff. you know, when I was um at the senior level of command and supporting the space force as an astronautical engineer and through my whole life, watching this technology emerge and and able to see the consequences of what this was going to mean for the art of peace to have strength to prevail for American interests as the economy of space starts emerging and then being considered a traitor because what is a fighter pilot doing talking about space? And the air force did not just like the army did not want an independent air force for the same reasons why the air force did not want a space force. And so you know I was um not welcome and uh and and that's okay that that is the that is the cost of innovation. Um, and if you're not grounded in God and and the the you know, look at Job in the Bible, you know, even his family and his friends uh abandoned him and all he had was God. And often times people, Job was like, why are you doing this, God? And it was, you know, he couldn't see this, but it was because an entire generation that was going to come after Job could see that as long as you cling to God, you can weather anything. You cannot torture me. You cannot torture my, you know, you cannot do anything to me. You can never steal away my sense of value and worth for God. And I do this though, you know, I could just shut up and be quiet and and go along to get along or just not be a part of the fray. But I truly believe that if um the the spirit of of of uh fighting for uh God's will is in us, God will usher in a new age. Uh he will forgive us and he will because God wants more people going to heaven. And if if we are so corrupt as a human race that the game is up, then God will come home again and it'll be over. Okay? But um but if we can usher in a better future, the golden age, and I believe it's biblical, I think it's prophetic. Uh more people will be in heaven because more people will be born and will be uh prosperous, healthy, and secure. And we have the creativity. God has given us the brains to create our future to build it. We don't have to be victims of other people building it. And this constitution that America has is the best hope of humanity. And with my relationships across the globe from my time in the military and the foreign countries that I became friends with and my cultural understanding having been raised in a different country. Um all the other countries of the world are just looking at America going, I hope President Trump succeeds because if he doesn't succeed, we're all screwed. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have a tremendous amount of respect for you just saying that and that's I mean that's everybody here is grounded in truth and God and and we all just consider this a conduit and that's it. But um but back to So where are we where are we with transportation within minutes to anywhere on the globe? Well, I think the first person that will operationalize that is Elon Musk. uh he's furthest ahead and uh and that and and now the you know it's taken a number of years and uh now with President Trump in the White House where permission will be given for the the military to actually take these next steps um and uh you're going to you're going to see that get operationalized. So um I would say in the next few years we will probably start with just equipment where Elon Musk will be able to deliver 100 tons of equipment anywhere on the planet in less than an hour for the military to maintain uh the presence of peace the the the power of diplomacy through the fact that we can do something and when you can maneuver like that with that kind of you know speed agility and you know affordability will come but affordability meaning that he's brought the cost of that kind of flight down 10x and he can reuse it. Uh, you know, um, it's a gamecher. How can another country compete with America being able to bring 100 tons as often as they want anywhere on the planet in less than an hour? I mean, that's that's a great question. Do does another country are they close to this? Well, so China is probably the fastest follower. Uh, but they they aren't anywhere close. Elon Musk knows like I know in my company space build speed is the only protection patents you know that just gives you the legal right to sue somebody if they try to do something on your front yard or you know with your patent but that is so easy to bypass. All you have to do is change one ingredient. You know you patent a recipe for cookies and somebody adds an extra ounce of butter and now you can't sue them even though it may taste the same. M so uh China is probably the fastest follower but Elon Musk is the uh the true innovator. Well, I mean it's my understanding that China has been able to replicate what we're doing so fast through corporate espionage. Right. Is that is that true? Absolutely. So they aren't really innovators. They are just stealing what we have. True. Through corporate espionage, sending in spies to these companies and right getting the sauce back to just the cyber espionage alone. They don't even have to have a person. But they they they they um they do it through a multi mult multiple means. They'll have people on the board of adviserss, board of directors. They'll, you know, they'll buy their way into companies with a lot of money through proxies. So they'll give a bunch of money to some American retired general that then says, "Hey, I'll invest in your company." Which is it might be a startup on AI. And then they're on the board and uh they have access to the information and the money flows and the information flows back. That's one way of doing it. Cyber espionage where many of these companies do not have the kind of cyber hygiene and cyber techniques to be able to prevent somebody from getting in the back doors. Often times the equipment they have uh has chips that were built in China and the back doors are built in and nobody knows that it's civ, you know, it's a civ out. So there's a thousand ways of this industrial espionage getting back to China. So, let's talk about culture, though, because this industrial espionage and and China being a fast follower has a cultural component to it. And I'll I'll just talk to two of them. And this gets back to the fact that we we have to understand the cultures, understand your enemy, understand yourself. And in a thousand years, you will not lose a battle. Um, China, the people of China are as smart as anybody else on the planet. And the the cavemen, you know, were as smart as we are. I mean the human brain and the intelligence has not changed. Building on the knowledge of the past is what's changed and that's why this attribute of being an aggressive learner really makes you very powerful. Uh if you can absorb all this and AI will accentuate that where now I can devour through a hundred books to get the essence instead of spending all the hours reading them you know. Uh so these tools of technology are going to increase the ex exponential nature of innovation. But back to fast followers in China. Um if China did not have a communist ideology um that picks winners and losers and not does not allow the free market to operate where for the free market is like a garden. You plant a 100 seeds and only one will blossom. The other 99 will fail but that one that blossoms pays for all the 99 that fail. you know, that's the the the the mathematics of innovation or an a VC, an investor. They'll put out, you know, a hundred uh investments small and two will pop, but those two will pay for all the others. You know, SpaceX in the early days, look what it's done. Google uh and I have, you know, personal knowledge. I worked in the White House in the '9s and uh I won't mention the name but one of the people in the White House had invested in Google in the early days and uh you know just incredible wealth uh by but they had invested in you know a hundred different companies and that one popped all the others failed but it didn't matter. So, China's communist ideology suffocates the the free market from letting um the results decide who wins and who loses and let the customer decide based on the definition of innovation. Is it novel? Meaning it's a different new and is it useful? Okay. And so China will forever be compromised at its ability to innovate in the subordination that is created by the Communist Party. Okay? Because if you're a leader in a company and you go in a direction that's not consistent with the talking points of the Communist Party, you're done. And you won't get a loan for the good house. Your kids won't go to the good schools. You can't shop in the good markets. I mean the social scoring and the technology to imprison and enslave people to talk the talk and to do exactly what the communist party wants you to do. The lack of freedom and free will is paralyzing to innovation. So it's not that they don't have innovative people. Those innovative people are not allowed to try and fail. The second one though is over time China even their language um is in inhibits innovation. Um you know I I'm not an expert in their language but I have dear friends that are experts in their language and have lived there their whole life but they're American. They grew up in America and have lived there as adults studying the language and the culture and um even their language inhibits innovation and uh the willingness to step out. In America, it is just the opposite. We are mavericks. We are pioneers. We are innovator. We are risktakers. And uh we are the envy of the world. Uh you don't see it if you just live in America, but boy, I tell you, one of the blessings of my life when I was the general officer working on the joint staff for the chairman in charge of uh policy and strategy to Russia, Europe, and NATO, I got to travel and visit uh so many countries both in NATO, Russia, and Africa and the Middle East because Afghanistan was, you know, in the middle of its um of its um aggressiveness And they fear us, they hate us, and they are jealous of us all at the same time. Mhm. Um they they're jealous of us because they are not allowed to do what they see us doing, and they wish they could. Um uh but u most people that are born around the world are born into a system where there is a glass ceiling whether it's their socioeconomic status their political status their social status the cast system that get you know built in or in Africa where I grew up where a youngster looks around and says there is no way I can be a hero in this condition. I mean, and so they all want to leave and they want to go to the US or they want to go to Europe. And fewer and fewer now want to go to Europe because they see the suffocation of Europe and the policies that are killing innovation. Mhm. Um but um and and there are some good stories about how much they fear us. One of them um and I'll keep this short because it could be a long story, but the essence is this. I was in Russia. We were trying to convince the leadership of Russia. Okay, this was when Yelson was um in in charge and uh uh Macarov was the equivalent of General Macarov was the equivalent of the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and we were trying to convince them that our um our our missiles the egis ashore egis this is the SM3 missile that was primarily on Navy ships um and we were looking at putting it in Poland designed primarily to defend America from Iran and missiles coming to America from Iran. Russia was dead afraid of that because they were afraid it was going to threaten their ICBMs and their nuclear deterrent posture. And our mission was to convince them that it was not a threat. You know, all of the velocities and all of the the physics of um of uh proving to them that whether it's at sea or on shore, this cannot threaten your nuclear deterrent posture with America, which would be destabilizing and rightfully so. And after literally days and weeks of arguing and face to face, uh, you know, General Marov slapped the table at one point and stood up and went on a 20-minute tie raid. And his interpreter, uh, a young 20-some kid scared out of his wits that there was yelling going on with state leaders in a very, very serious conversation, uh, just basically said, "You Americans don't understand. We put Sputnik into space in 1957 and you Americans went apeshit and put a man on the moon. You can do anything you put your mind to. You turn to your industrial base and your innovators and those missiles will kill all of our intercontinental ballistic missiles the moment you tell your industrial base to solve that problem. So, we don't give a [ __ ] what you say or promise. Until we get a signed document from President Obama that you will never threaten our ICBMs, we have nothing to talk about. So, stop wasting our time. Wow. Wow. and and and the the subtext from the general officers at my level, not the chairman or the vice president or the president's level, was I wish we had that kind now wish we had that kind of industrial base. Now, the Russians have some of the greatest innovative minds on the planet. There's something about the culture of Russia, and I know what it is culturally. It's that the Russian youth are forced to fight one another and and take risk and and be in situations where it's life or death. It they use nature, they use fighting u and you know the martial arts um and they celebrate the fact that they put their kids through the crucible. Doesn't mean they don't love them, but they know life is hard and it's harder when you're stupid, lazy, or weak. And so their their innovators are just killer. They innovated, you know, they were the ones that created stealth and then we operationalized it. They they are doing things in space with hypersonic missiles in the messosphere that you know make us look at it and go, "Holy [ __ ] that is amazing." What are they doing in space? Yeah. So uh but those those scientists and engineers are jealous of us because the system does not allow them uh to innovate like America innovates as quickly as American can innovate. But America is at risk because this military-industrial complex and back to your first question, why are these technologies not coming to the market? It's because we are becoming our own worst enemy at this superpower we have in our culture and in our mindset of being the innovator, self-sufficient mavericks that are willing to take risk and allowed to take risk. And now the government says, "No, I know better. You know, you got to be safe. You got to put safety over uh, you know, innovation." Now, we want to be safe. But I'm here to tell you the two shuttle disasters when you read the safety reports on that the reason it happened is because we were trying to be too safe. It is it it it's a dilemma. It is uh sometimes hard for people to understand. But I I I challenge you to read the books on the history of both disasters of the space shuttle and you'll find the root cause of those disasters is that NASA had adapted to a culture where safety was more important than effectiveness and um and and that's part of why we do not see innovation here now. So, forgive me for making that final point on why we are the envy of the world, why the world is looking to us and why they are so energized about what President Trump is saying. Even what he said in Saudi Arabia yesterday, if you haven't seen that speech, you need to see that speech because he not only talks to the innovation, he talks to the peace that is possible if we actually start talking to one another. even with Iran and and uh you know and all these knots we are tied into geopolitically goes back to innovation, culture, technology and America being willing to take the risk to be bold and usher in a golden age of peace instead of perpetuating decades of war and industrial age grinding to a halt of innovations that can uplift the human condition. We are all slaves to a global cabal, if you will, of a small number of people getting rich and powerful and controlling at the cost of innovation and the enslavement of people that should be free. Thank you for saying that. What is Russia doing in space? Yeah. So, Russia is innovating and what they're doing is they are they are looking at what America has done where we have elegant satellites and we are doing amazing things to look down on the earth and help the the the operations that are going on on the earth and they are you know looking at the cost differential where we can invest so much more in our military strength than they can. So they have developed these uh messospheric supersonic um weapons. So basically they can launch from space or from the land something that can maneuver at mock speeds in the area where there's almost no air and and it is designed to be able to get through our defenses and kill anything they want to kill within minutes. So if they see a ship they don't like there, they could kill it and it maneuvers so fast um and and our systems are designed to to to kill other things that are more predictable like a parabolic curve, not something that moves at those speeds and uh and can maneuver. Um and so we have to counter that now. Okay? Because this is the this is the tit fortat of competitive advantage both in business and in warfare where if your enemy develops something that's really cool that you can't afford you find something that cuts its feet out from under it at a fraction of the cost. That's what they've done. Are they Is this up and running or is this Yeah, they've done it. It's in the news. you you know about a year ago I think is when they launched the first one that was uh a shot across the bow for America that what the hell are we doing? Wow. And again you know President Trump knows these things and he um you know so thank God he is back in because again in in the last administration these innovations were in idol and now they're an afterburner and and this is our superpower. He won't talk about it, but God help the country that puts him to the test because you even listened to a speech yesterday and uh and u those of us that know are so grateful that our country has a defender that's not afraid to be strong. That's good to hear. That's really good to hear. Spacebuild your company. So you are you are actually constructing satellites in space correct? Well we um we we will be constructing satellites in space. Uh right now we are at the stage where we have the modular elements that are qualified. We uh you know we we have um uh missions that have gone to the international space station are going to the international space station. We have equipment that has gone to the moon a couple of months ago. uh supercomputer or computational capability. Um and and uh so you put equipment on the moon. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. We uh you know, but again, this this goes back to a man I think you ought to have on this show. His name is Dennis Wingo and he is one of these rare engineers that is not only brilliant in his own right as an engineer but he can see most engineers are fairly siloed and they are the PhD world expert at a deep silo of knowledge. His unique gift is to be able to be deep on multiple silos and then see across a holistic systemic look. So when he you know when he presents a design for a solution he is solving problems across engineering disciplines that any other engineer in those disciplines do not see the integration and the problems that will emerge in the future. And so one of his reputations for all of us in the military that we're watching and and one of my jobs in the military was called the director of requirements and my job was essentially uh for all combat air forces to include communication at the time. My job was to look at the engineering benches of America and all these innovative technologies that are percolating in little benches and corners of engineering brilliance and bring them to the war fighter as fast as possible. This is where I discovered Dennis Wingo and his reputation is everything he builds in space works. So for example that uh that that computer that he built for the the moon that is on the south pole of the moon right now uh it was you know is only designed the specs that they wanted were designed to you know like you know 20° C positive 20° C even though the environment of the moon is you know if you're facing the sun it's about 450° C and if you're facing deep space on the back side of that if you turn around you're you're experiencing negative4 450 degrees Fahrenheit. So the thermal environment of space is is so aggressive. And then there's the radiation environment where the radiation will just obliterate a computer uh if it's not designed to withstand that kind of environment. And um there was a problem where uh the the the lunar lander that was designed by another company fell over on its side. And you can read about it if you want. But uh uh but our computers still worked even without the heater that keeps it warm in the cold side and the the shielding that keeps it cool in the hot side. It demonstrated that this guy knows how to build things that work in space. That's his reputation and you ought to have him on this show because he will give you because he's not just a technologist. He's also a historian and he understands uh you know the the geopolitics of technology and how technology changes fate and he knows his history. his his uh you know his great-grandfather um uh and again you'll have to ask him for the perfect story but uh was in the railroads and even the gauge of the railroad the innovation of the railroads his you know his family has been part of innovation for generations so he comes by it honestly one of the most fascinating minds and so um when we got out of the military um a number of us dedicated ourselves that we would start a company with this guy and we would uh help this because America needs this technology in space to defend American interests because if we don't have it, we will be victims. what China is building is uh an infrastructure in in space that will be able to see and kill anything that flies above the trees and uh and and you know we need to build uh the same capability so that space is peaceful and that there's a deterrence where China knows that if they behave irresponsibly in space if by whether it's creating space junk or a directed energy weapon that paralyzes a portion of our economy at the time of their choosing that they can't get away with that because we're up there with them with better or or or equal technology and that there is a balance of power. Right now, we're on a track where we build better satellites, but they're building a superior strategy and all the money in the world cannot solve a disconnect in strategy. Maybe you can connect me with him. Yeah, I would love to have him on the show. You'll love him. What? So what are you guys doing on the moon? Yeah. So what we're doing on the moon is part of uh of what America is trying to do and that is um take the steps to build an economy in space. So one of the steps is a permanent presence in in space that's more than just astronauts on the international space station. U and this is about resources in space. It's about the asteroids ma mining the asteroids. It's about uh exploration. Uh most people don't realize how much uh the 1960s and going to the moon uplifted the human condition. The the technologies and the innovation that happen when people are uh gathered around a goal like going to the moon in the 60s that transforms so much of our economy of of the things that benefit people on the earth. So going to space is not about being in space. And a lot of people will criticize and say why do you spend all this money on space? Let's just solve the problems on earth. It may be counterintuitive but the human mind and the human experience um if you are not moving forward and exploring and learning and discovering you are falling backwards. or putting a finer point on it. If you're a civilization like America that is not moving forward, exploring, pushing the boundaries and the limits of discovery and pioneering, you will be you will fall behind other countries that are doing the same. China understands this. Every historian understands this. Every psychologist understands it. But it's hard if the American people do not realize that there's a purpose behind this. And the purpose is their betterment. the purpose is their freedom and their their their prosperity, their security, their health, their free will. So, China is moving forward with exploration and with um that the the ability to build an infrastructure to be able to bring um value to their country, just the power and space that they're investing in. not only the solar power that we talked about beaming it to the earth, but also nuclear power and their plans to have a nuclear power plant in space in in the coming years. If they can tap tap into the telecommunication market globally and the energy market globally, trillions of dollars flow into the Chinese economy. It's part of their belt and road initiative. But if you read Chinese literature, doctrine, vision, and their speeches of their leadership, it is it is a clear statement. Space is their national vision. And they plan on bringing in the Middle Kingdom by dominating the economy that space brings to them. And and and uh you might say, well, you know, space economy, you got a satellite, you got a cell phone that now can talk to the satellite. you know, how can that how can that make them the dominant economy of the world? And it's because space with one build of an infrastructure can tap into every person on the planet versus a a linear model where you build one power plant and now you're limited to the the capital investment of power lines and and u and and then uh the you know the uh the fact that those power lines are vulnerable. There is a tremendous amount of cost in a linear system of delivery of goods and services versus aworked method. And I'll give you a perfect example. Um, and it's the it's the mail system. Okay? Before the internet, if I wanted to mail out a 100 letters, I'd have to buy 100 stamps and then send them out. And that's costly. Now, with a aworked approach, I can type one email, send it to a 100 people, and it is a fraction of the cost. pretty much just the electricity and the service I I I purchase. Okay, that's the difference between and so now um in America for example, we have over 1 million cell towers. Um but you still only get one bar in West Texas or zero bars. And if you're in the bottom of the Grand Canyon, you know, you you have no capability. It would just take a few a handful of satellites in geocynchronous orbit over America and you have 5G and five bars everywhere. Okay. So now the difference in uh you know cost and it's about the price point. This is about the fact that everything that is national security is upstream of the economy. And if you can build an infrastructure of reusable satellites that you build in space where you can build them as big as you want, you can upgrade, modernize, and recapitalize them at pennies on the dollar so that every new innovation, whether it's quantum coming online or a new supercomput, you just unplug the old computer and plug the new one in. Now you can um invest in a very lowcost infrastructure that taps into trillions of dollars worth of revenue versus building a power plant in every village in Africa and power lines to every hut. You can see the power of the worked effect of space and why it's going to be so powerful. Wow. with these with these with these satellites that you're talking about that that would be solar powered and beam energy. And I mean, how exactly does that work? Sometimes when it comes to spending money, it's out of sight and out of mind. That daily coffee habit, those streaming subscriptions, they add up quick. Rocket Money helps you spot those patterns so you know what you're spending. I know I'm always looking for ways to save and Rocket Money can help me with that. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money will even try to negotiate lower bills for you. They automatically scan your bills to find opportunities to save. Then you can ask them to negotiate for you. They'll deal with customer service so you don't have to. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of 500 million in cancelled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when they use all of the apps premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with RocketMoney. Go to rocketmoney.com/srs today. That's rocketmoney.comsrs. rocketmoney.com/srs. When I started this podcast, it seemed like I had to figure it out all on my own. It was overwhelming. When you're starting something new, it seems like your to-do list just keeps growing and it can overrun your entire life. Finding the right tool can be such a gamecher. For millions of businesses, that tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world. and 10% of all e-commerce in the US from household names to brands just getting started. I use Shopify to power my own business so I can keep bringing you Vigilance Elite gummy bears. With hundreds of readytouse templates, Shopify helps you build online and is packed with helpful AI tools to accelerate your content creation. And like a marketing team, Shopify can create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are. Shopify is your commerce expert with world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping and beyond. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into with Shopify on your side. Sign up for your one month, $1 per month trial period and start selling today at shopify.com/srs. Go to shopify.comsrs. shopify.com/srs. Yeah. So again, I'll let the experts talk to it, but uh you know, again, being a generalist and talking to the experts at length and being in a company that's going to build the infrastructure for this technology to be delivered, uh I can give you uh the simple answer and that is that u uh the the the first thing is that the current way we build a satellite in America is like how we used to build rockets before Elon Musk came along. You build a satellite on the planet, you have to build it bulletproof, which is like 60% of the cost because it has to be able to be folded into a tight little ball that fits into the top of a rocket. And it's an incredibly violent ride to space. The vibrations and the G-forces would break apart anything that's not bulletproof. Okay, so that takes a lot of money and time. Then in 7 minutes that satellite is in space in this beautiful sanctity of space where there's nothing to get in its way and then it has to unfold like an origami. But if any of those uh you know explosive bolts or pulleys or levers go bad or don't unfold properly because of the violent ride to space, it's a total loss. And even and and that's a total loss loss of like 350 million to500 million for a satellite and then adding to that when you run out of gas it becomes space junk meaning now you got to build a whole new satellite in the old model. What space built does is we think of it like a Lego box. Instead of building a delicate Lego ship, then putting it on the handlebars of your bike and going over a rocky road to your destination or, you know, building a ship in Kansas and dragging across the Appalachian Mountains to put it in the ocean. You build the ship in the ocean or you take the Lego blocks up to space and you snap them together in space assembly and manufacturing. So all those Lego blocks now are resilient. You know, you drop a box of Legos on the on the floor and none of them break because there's no coupling loads and you can snap it together and you're just fine. Same is true with space. We we can load all these Lego parts in any rocket, send it up to space, snap them together using robotics and laser communication. So our engineers on the ground can see and operate just like a surgeon can do surgery from LA to New York because fiberoptic cables, laser communication is like fiber optic cables on steroids. And now you can build satellites for cheaper. Okay? You don't have to spend all the money to make them bulletproof. You can build them bigger and with big aperture and big power. Now you can get big return on investment. And when you need to put in a new computer, you just slide out the old computer, you know, board, slide in a new one with those robotic mechanics that are servicing the satellites, and you can upgrade indefinitely in this beautiful sanctity of space. So to get to your question about solar power from space, um, and again I can put you in touch with people that have been working this for decades because it is it it has been known that we could do this. The physics have been known and and and now we're at a place where it's been demonstrated. The X37, the Air Force space plane that used to be secret, that's not secret anymore. Um, you know, it's been doing experiments showing what I'm going to describe right now. And what you do is that the intensity of that sun's power, you you build a solar array that can absorb that sun's power and then you translate it into a radio wave and then you beam that radio wave down to earth and you it's received by called a rectenna and then you turn it back into electricity and you're done. I mean it's that simple. But because it's a radio wave uh it is it is not diminished by the weather. Okay. So or the atmosphere or the gravitational field or any of the things that that can sometimes prevent energy from getting to the earth. So solar and and this is the other uh piece of it uh the the the um the demonstrations that we see are at efficiency levels that we are not used to right now. any electricity that you're getting right now, whether it's created by wind energy, solar energy, nuclear energy, fossil fuel energy, wave energy, you name the the technique for delivering the electricity that's powering these lights right now. And you're lucky to get in the high 20s, low30s uh of efficiency. Meaning by the time you uh create the energy at a power plant and you bring it across the power lines and you bring it into your house, the heat dissipation and the efficiency loss, you're you're barely getting to 20%. Okay? Or or 30% at best. Solar panels the same way. Um they're they're low efficiency, but you know, we make it work. Solar panels are problematic, too, and so is wind because it's not always windy. You know, President Trump talks about this all the time. And there's day and night and weather. So if you're up in Alaska, solar panels don't work when it's dark, you know, half the year. Um, so, uh, the forms of energy we're going to see coming in are are going to be a a tapestry of all these things. It's going to be helium 3 when we start mining the asteroids and the moon for helium 3. That is such an efficient and effective clean energy way of producing a massive amount of energy for Earth. hydrogen. Even though hydrogen can be dangerous, there are ways of controlling it. Nuclear is on a path to where the odds of this chair going off high order are larger percentage-wise than those nuclear reactors going off high order. These modular small nuclear reactors that can power a city, okay, or a home or a cluster of homes anywhere on the planet. Um but 20% efficiency in the current method of delivery of energy. The experiments in space are showing the promise of initial efficiency levels of 80% efficiency by trans yeah by just by taking the energy of the sun and transforming it into a radio wave. the radio wave coming down to earth safe for humans transmitted in or received into a rectenna and then uh transferred back into electricity. You're receiving it at 80% efficiency. So now you're talking about an immediate jump of 60% efficiency. So now you're talking about what you see with computers where back in the day uh computers, you know, would fit on the third floor of of of a skyscraper and be millions of dollars. And now in everybody's pocket is a computer that for 500 to 800 bucks that blows away anything that was 50 years ago. This journey of more capability at lower cost is going to come to a market near you, a theater near you in the form of electricity and it's going to transform and now people in central Africa can afford electricity and they can afford information that is not blocked by anybody if we can figure out how to triangulate truth. back to what you do, triangulating truth. All of this is meaningless if we as human beings can't figure out what is true. So this so these satellites would beam energy into I'm sorry, what did you call it? A rectenna. It's like an antenna, but it's basically for radio waves to be absorbed and then turned back into electricity. So the rectenna would essentially take place of power plants. Correct. Correct. It would become the power plant, right? And then would that energy be disseminated through power lines? So again this will this will come in stages and this is where um you know we we uh you know there there is more to the story and and and I'll talk about uh Edison and Tesla uh in a in a minute on this question. So in the early days uh if I had to guess and again you don't want to guess on these things because you want the free market to make these decisions. You want the innovators that actually build the stuff. Mhm. Okay. So, in space, we're building the infrastructure to be able to build things large enough to accept that sun energy and then translate it into a radio wave, beam it down to Earth. We aren't going to build that. We're going to put it together. We are the construction company. You're the logistics. We are the logistics and infrastructure company that can build anything in space because the things we build are modular and can be reused. Never space junk again. And really our marketing now is there are companies that are satellite operators that want to buy a satellite to perpetuate the market of satellite TV, satellite radio, and all their satellites are coming due. They built them 15 years ago and they're all running out of gas. And so they're all becoming space junk. So they have a choice. They can either build another satellite just like that for half a billion dollars that will become space junk in 15 years from now or the technology on it will become irrelevant in 5 years if we invent a new computer board or they can buy our fleet of satellites where that computer board can be upgraded and when it runs out of gas you just refuel it. Um so now back to your question about how solar power from space will evolve. I don't know. But I but here's what I would predict. And again, predicting is dangerous business. And so I don't want to do it. But what we know we could do right now if we can build in space affordably based on the model of this company and why this company exists is um we could have solar power transmitted into radio waves beamed down to a rectenna that's right by a power plant and ported into the power lines. So that we still are seeing a return on investment in the current structure. Okay? And the current instruct structure is a power plant with all these power lines that are very expensive. Some are underground, some are above ground. But if the American people could look at how much money taxpayers and private um companies put into the power grid and the delivery of electricity, it is astounding. Water's the same way. And we can get into that because I was the president of Genesis Systems which is a water generator company but pulling water out of the air affordably. So now you can have a power water generator like a like a air conditioner any spot on the planet without the need for electricity solar power alone. we we can get to the water but back to electricity. Uh what I think will happen in the first days of solar power from space is a power company will have a big power plant that is a huge investment. They haven't seen the full return on investment of that, you know, coal power plant or nuclear power plant and all the power lines that go to all the homes that that power plant uh serves. But they'll put up a rectenna because the cost will be low enough that they can invest in that and say, "Okay, here's another source of power in case the power plant goes down." And we will port that electricity into the power lines. But eventually what we may see is what was revealed when Edison and Tesla were first delivering electricity to the human race. And you you touched on this earlier in our conversation where you said, "Well, you know, the Rockefellers, you know, they the the way to monetize or to be able to monitor how much electricity you're using and getting money from you was a a dial that was run by the electrical wire that was going through it. And I could come and read the meter at your house and say, "You owe me 100 bucks." Because how much electricity you used? They back in the day didn't know how to monetize radio waves. Well, we know how to monetize them now. you know, your cell phone. We know exactly how much data you use and I know exactly how much to charge you for it. Or your satellite TV or or your, you know, your Starlink antenna getting broadband from Elon Musk's constellation. So, we know how to monetize radio waves. That's a no-brainer. But when Edison and Tesla were doing their little competition, Edison won out initially because um it was easy to monetize uh his Tesla was I think the superior thinker and AC power and DC power are thanks to Edison and Tesla. Okay. But there was something else Tesla did that looked like magic that did not get put into play and it was the beaming of power. Okay. What is interesting about this is that it didn't get put into play because again Edison was a better marketer and it was easy to monetize his invention and we're still stuck in that paradigm. But it's a paradigm of low efficiency. It's a paradigm of danger. We still put little baby plugs in our electrical outlets cuz if you stick your finger in that thing or you stick a knife into it, you're going to die and that ain't good. And it's right there. the bathtub and the blow dryer, you're going to die. That's not good. But we live with it because that's what we came in and that's what everybody, you know, it's back to innovation. Why haven't we innovated? But what's interesting about what Tesla did with beaming energy is a lot of that literature went into the hands of the Trump family. President Trump talks about this, okay? and and and so we've now proven Tesla's original experiments on beaming energy using the Air Force Research Lab and the X37 beaming solar power from the sun down to a rectenna on Earth. the the the Navy, you know, the the um the Navy is also u pursuing this and there's a lot of companies pursuing it more so than you might know and uh many countries pursuing it because they see the promise of a high efficiency delivery of electricity that will usher in a portion of the new energy market and deliver it to any person on the planet no matter where they live. Wow. Wow. I mean, this is this just solves I don't understand how this isn't a bigger discussion with all the the clean energy talk and I mean, even with the data centers that we were just talking about. I mean, the from what I understand, these data centers can be massive and they're struggling with the power companies because the power companies don't have the power to feed the data centers. Why aren't they why aren't they building data centers in space that can beam the information down to AI? Right. I mean, well, here's the reason. This gets rid of power plants. This gets it turns even just an eyesore. That's right. I mean, it's all in space. You can't see it. Yeah. And and how is this not a bigger discussion? Because of the price of entry. Okay. In the past. Um but you know what it's what Jeff Bezos has said in the past. You know if we do this right with space we uh we can turn the earth into the park and all heavy industry is off earth and we can we can God gave us a universe of minerals and resources that are the same as exist on the planet in the form of asteroids and celestial bodies that are all within reach of the earth right now. Um and so one of the reasons we haven't done it is one the price point was too high. Okay? So you needed a government that was actually willing to invest in it. But now those price points are coming down. And why space this company is here is because we um we can bring the price of construction in space down 10x. And that will start opening up business cases for all of these technologies to be able to benefit mankind on Earth and do these things. But it's not just electricity for these data centers, for example. It's water. When a data center goes to some place, uh it it needs water to cool because the heat is what kills those data centers more so than anything else. And it's and it needs electricity to power it and it needs water to cool it. and they're stealing from the drinking water that is insufficient in these places already. So, this is one reason Genesis Systems, the first company I uh was part of when I first got out of the military, and Spaceuilt, the second company, are linked because water and energy are what bring prosperity, health, and security to all people on the planet. And if we can tap into the unlimited source of water in the atmosphere, how much water is in the atmosphere and the and the hydraulic cycle where the more water you pull out of the air, the quicker the water is evaporated out of the ocean, the engine of our water system and the perfect uh the the perfect sustainability of our water cycle gives us an infinite source of water where we don't have to pollute our our wells, our aquafers, and you can have an abundant source of clean water and when you have clean water in Africa and where I grew up clean water was the most important problem 50% of the deaths and illnesses across the globe are a result of dirty water or bad w water and even in places like India where the kids are forced to bathe in dirty river rivers and drink dirty water they have health issues their entire life that make them sick and ill and suffer until the day they die the life expectancy where I grew up is in the 30s the low30s even today because of and that's why we had to come home so early. My father was so ill with malaria and feria and dysentery. Um and I think the only reason I didn't have a lot of those things is because I was you know they started going over to Africa when I was four months old and I I kind of I think my immune system was built there and why I don't get sick I think. But um it goes back to the fact that if you can bring clean water and and affordable energy to anybody on the planet without the need for a a water system that drills into the ground and depletes an aquifer or the aquifer gets polluted by these forever chemicals. If you can have a source that draws fresh, clean water from the air anywhere on the planet and you have energy for people and information for them to build their own economy and throw off throw off the shackles of of tyranny and slavery, you have ushered in the golden age. And that's what President Trump is allowing us to do now. And these innovations are going to change the world. I mean that's interesting that you say that on a much smaller scale after co I turned into a huge prepper. Ammo, water, food, gas. So did a lot of people. All that stuff, right? Guns. And my water, the way I would get water, I moved to Tennessee. I had to have a creek. I was like a no. But another another thing that I have that's just in my storage is solar powered inverter. Mhm. Uh dehumidifier. Yeah. And that's it. And then you It's doing exactly that. It's just pulling water out of thin air. Use a solar power to power the dehumidifier. In a couple hours you have a couple gallons of water. Yeah. And you just keep it going. I never thought about that on a mass scale, right? I mean, well, here's the reason it hasn't been done before is because uh the energy you the laws of thermodynamics don't change. And uh using a uh a a condens condition like an air conditioning system or a condenser or a dehumidifier as a method, it it's like five gallons of diesel for one gallon of water. So, the efficiency is is not there. But what we did at Genesis Systems, what these brilliant engineers did is they found a way of tricking mother nature where they they used a liquid desicant to be able to make the liquid desicant so attractive to water in the air that all you do do is have to have a very light fan blowing water over a civ that's filled with this liquid. And the civ is like a sponge. Okay? This water or the liquid desk is like a sponge. Imagine there's one gallon of liquid in this civ and the air flows over it. That liquid will swell up to a 100 gallons. 99 of the gallons of that liquid is pure water. Then you move it into another batch and you change the uh the thermal you change the thermal characteristics of the liquid and that's where the proprietary and and and and trade secrets uh and and intellectual property come in. you change the thermal properties of that liquid. And now the liquid wants to give up the water. And so it takes very little energy to absorb the water and then release the water. And so it's in this batch cycle like an engine. It's going it's swelling up to 100 gallons, getting rid of 100 gallons, swelling up to 100 gallons, getting rid of and then now you benefit from water and it it scales. So the city of Tampa for example um as I was transitioning from that company which by the way that system of water management is what we're going to use in space habitats and we can talk about again these companies are connected not only for the benefit of the human condition of water and electricity and energy and information but also for uh human space flight and human habitats in space and we'll get to that in a second but this u now um the city of Tampa was partnering with Jenna systems to build a 30 million gallon a day plant. So now you don't have to do delal, you know, the del is taking uh ocean water and turning it into drinking water. But then the the heavy metals and the brine that come out of the ocean. We're killing the Tampa Bay, you know, and killing, you know, it it is just not sustainable. It's not good for the economy. And and the stuff that you put into the landfills will kill the landfill for a thousand years. we you know so we get a we we have to be good stewards of this planet and we have to figure out a way of getting water to people that need water clean fresh water globally scale it but it has to be affordable the energy equation has to be affordable so uh the coupling of this water system which is already affordable based on the technique of not using dehumidification or air conditioning but rather a liquid desicant that's like this sponge that can work for you uh obeying the laws of physics and laws of thermodynamics, but also giving you clean water using a solar panel or affordable at at scale, however much you need. In fact, it's on Amazon even right now. You can order one for your house that looks like an air conditioner and gives you clean water for your house. You can get one on Amazon. Yep. Go take a look. They're still expensive. Okay. And they're still in the beta phase. uh but um it's an example of innovation that only is is now breaking through but only because the the founder David Stuckenberg is a one of these mighty men of our age that is not dissuaded by anything and he's he's a bonafide genius on every front. Um and uh and and it takes people like Dennis Wingo, the chief technology officer of our company doing this stuff in space and a guy like David Stuckenberg breaking through. But here's here's how this um the system prevents innovation. Elon Musk wanted to buy that water system to get the water out of the humid air of Bokeh Chico in southern Texas to cool his launchpad because of all that concrete. You remember how the first launch destroyed all that concrete and he needed literally tons of water for every launch, but there isn't sufficient water and that the ocean water wasn't going to work because of the toxicity and the salt and, you know, just all the corrosion. So, he wanted to buy a Genesis systems and and and build up, you know, a million gallons for each launch. And um the state of Texas said forbidden. Why? They couldn't figure out how to tax the water. Are you [ __ ] You know because the air belongs to the government. You know this is this is uh the major problem we have right now which infests innovation. It infests truth that you're trying to tell and it is the administrative state that thinks it's know it knows better and it will basically forbid somebody from saying something they don't want them to say. You know our our rights to free speech. they will prevent you from building something if they haven't figured out how to tax it or they don't understand the technology and they won't even let you innovate. Um so the journey for innovators to actually break out not to mention that the municipalities their main source of wealth is the taxation of electricity, the taxation of water, water and electricity. Imagine now you can decouple from the municipalities the revenue of water. Now there there has to be some taxation because if you the like the water generator uh you you generate let's say 200 gallons a day for your home. Okay. But that water has to go down a drain after you're done showering or flushing the toilet. So you need to pay for that infrastructure of the drains and then the cleaning of that water. Um so there still has to be some taxation. But the fact that Texas use a septic system. Sure, there you go. But, you know, so, but this is why cuz Elon Musk was not going to, you know, put it down the drain. He was going to reuse that water every launch, you know, but they were like, "How do we tax it?" And and so they they it was going to take them 10 years and studies to figure out, you know, uh what this was. And then and then there, you know, so maybe innovators need to come up with the way, hey, this is what I'm going to do. And oh by the way, we've already figured out your tax schedule. Here's how you can tax me on it. And I know that's Yeah. Yeah. So you know there I mean if it needs to get done right and you can't Yeah. There but you know you you the trick to these journeys of uh getting around the bureaucracy and the administrative state that grows so big that it now thinks it's smarter than you and it has the right to tell you what you can do, what you cannot do. this form of slavery which is uh not only in the form of what you can say and what you can do but also in the form of taxation and in the form of um of inflation uh you know the fact that we get taxed on our land every single year. So I bought my land and then I get taxed on it every year. Clearly I don't own that land because if I don't pay those taxes the government comes and takes the land away. Mhm. Uh, I get taxed on my car every time I in, you know, every every year, depending on your state, you have to pay a tax based on the value of the car that you already paid for and pay taxes on, you know, uh, a form of slavery, a form of taxation without representation. And we all just kind of go along. I'm with you. When we don't need to. So um you know so on on many levels um innovators uh need to build and understand the bureaucratic state the administrative state and whether it's you know marketing in the taxation so the government gets their slice but also baking into it a method where it uplifts the current infrastructure. So, for example, the city of Tampa being willing and looking at this and saying, "We can't afford a delaw plant. One, because it's too expensive and our people can't afford the cost, but two, it's polluting our landfills and it's destroying our Tampa Bay." So, they want to get away from something that is not sustainable and is bad for the environment. And they're willing to invest in a new technology that will will dovetail in. So you build one that's small and eventually you build one that supplies all your water needs. Um and uh and and then everybody's happy. But you got to do it slowly and you need to partner with these these institutions that are doing good things. But um but we shouldn't be um giving the government a a further uh taxation without representation just because they are big brother trying to tell us exactly how to suck the egg. Uh we we have to be Americans where we are independent and we are um self-sufficient and we have certain rights that God has given us that are enshrined in our constitution and our bill of rights. And people need to start by knowing that and and and investing, you know, they can invest in these kind of technologies that that cut the cord from the administrative state that allow us to live free and independent anywhere on the planet. Now we can start spreading out. You know, you fly over the states and you look at all this desolate area. Why is it desolate? Because there's no water. If we can produce water anywhere and produce electricity anywhere without the need for terrestrial infrastructure or depleting an aquafer right now, we're about ready to deplete the aquifers in Central America and the bread basket of the world because we are siphoning that water out at 10 times the rate mother nature puts it back in. Mother nature puts it back in and measuring in hundreds and thousands of years and we're drying it out in tens of years. So that you know that chicken is going to come back to roost as well if we don't figure out the water system. So water, electricity, information are the ground the ground work of prosperity, health and security. It's economic which is downstream of security and space is going to be the thing that enables the human race to truly usher in a new economy that turns to the heavens for our resources. I mean that's a God thing where God gave us brains and for the existence of all humanity we have turned down and in for our solutions and now we can turn out and up and look to God and the heavens for our resources and then the earth turns into a park where we don't have to mine and scar the surface of the earth. We don't have to have power lines that make an ugly skyline. We don't have to pollute our water and we can let mother nature get back to its beautiful, perfect sustainability in our groundwater, in our environment, in the air. I mean, what a beautiful future. And it's accessible to people in Central Africa that currently are crucified and enslaved. People in Central Asia, I mean, look at Micronesia and uh in Indonesia and Malaysia. It may rain a lot, but the the the the way the rain runs off, there's not enough water for the people that live in the highlands of those islands. And it is a travesty the devastation of the human suffering that is created by a lack of adequate water. And all of it can be delivered through a bright mind and innovators that usher it in and then government getting out of the way. That is the biggest problem with the American government. It gets in the way. And it does so because it thinks it's smarter and entitled to govern us in ways our constitution never envisioned. And they hide behind safety. They hide behind sustainability. They hide behind uh you know uh health and equity, inclusion, diversity. It's all a roose for government to have more control and more power. And they divide us and they accuse us. And those are the calling cards of Satan right there. Accusation, division. We belong to each other and we are more in common with every culture on the planet and within America than we are different. And we need to start celebrating our commonality and celebrating our differences and not fighting about it and letting people tell us we should hate you because you're a different color. We should hate you because you think differently. Mhm. Just not true. Why would China be building a nuclear power plant in space if they can just harness solar? Well, for for a couple of reasons. One is that um uh the uh it uh it is actually uh a very efficient way of creating highintensity energy a nuclear power plant and it's actually probably a shorter journey because with the kind of lift weight that Elon Musk is going to be able to provide in that star starship that that that China is is is fast following. they will probably be able to deliver a nuclear power plant into space because the the technology of making them small and relatively lightweight is already here. I mean, it's literally probably a year or two from being commercialized where you'll see a nuclear power plant actually powering a town in Central America or in Central, you know, in in the the some state in America as a as a test case. So, uh ch and and and this is smart for China. They're they're doing it all. Solar power from space is going to require building in space larger structures that can fit into the small tip of a rocket and assembling it in space. So this is why um our company is uh so promising is that when we can build large structures in space then solar power becomes a a business case that can close. But nuclear may be there first. Helium 3 might be there first. Okay. But we need all of these pathways to be followed. Um all of these ideas that I've just described are are just a handful of what will be part of the tapestry of energy in the future and there will be others as well uh that you hear talked about but have not yet uh come to you know operational capability. For example, there are some energy ideas that show promise but it's for very low inensity energy and we kind of use it already for like some of these um voyagers that go out to Jupiter and beyond. they, you know, you wonder how they've been powered for 50, 60 years, and it's because it's a form of power uh that is very promising, but it's just a trickle of power. But that's how you could be powering devices, you know, like our cell phones. Our cell phones are specifically designed for high intensity intensity power where you got to plug it into the wall or when you go to the airport, you know, you see everybody running for the power outlet because their phones are out of juice. It's hilarious. But um they're they only require that because they're built to require that. There are ways of building a a piece of technology that requires such low energy to still give you the information you need without having to be a slave to an outlet. But that takes time because the investment in all of this technology that is in the pocket of every person takes time to evolve and then move into a marketplace that's new because you first need that new source of energy and then people start buying different devices. You're also a disruptor and that's dangerous. Oh yeah. Yep. So that's why, you know, um, for both of these companies, Genesis Systems and Space Built, we've been in stealth mode until we felt like we were strong enough to come out because the attacks and the the the biggest risk is our government. What a shame. That is the biggest risk. It's not uh these companies will adapt it to it and they will buy it and invest in it if they see that it gives them a future revenue stream. But the government will say, "Uh, we're going to shut you down and do a study for 10 years as other countries beat you to the punch." Man, man, I saw another clip, too, that um I want to ask you about. This was on April 14th, 2025. Michael Katz, I can't pronounce his last name, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy stated, "Our technologies permit us to manipulate time and space." Yes, they leave distance annihilated cuz things grow and improve productivity. What What does he mean by that? Our passenger planes are slower than they used to be. Our trains crawl compared to those in other parts of the world. Our cars do not fly. Advances have not stopped, but something has gone wrong. Stagnation was a choice. We have weighed down our builders and innovators. The well-intentioned regulatory regime of the 1970s became an ever tightening ratchet, first hampering America's ability to become a net energy exporter and then making it harder and harder to build. We seem to have lost focus and vision, to have lowered our sights and let systems and structures and bureaucracies muddle us along. But we are capable of so much more. Our technologies permit us to manipulate time and space. They leave distance annihilated, cause things to grow and improve productivity. Yeah. So, um, what I think he's referring to is quantum. So let's spend a couple minutes on quantum because it uh it it's uh it's a fascinating topic and uh I'll I'll start by telling you what I think is the ultimate outcome of quantum for me. It is it is the evidence of God and it's the evidence of the fact that we totally misunderstand and and do not know even the beginnings of the complexity of the universe we live in. um that God has created us with such infinite complexity connected with the the the universe and our our our inner um our interior life, our relationship with God and with one another that we are again we're like children crawling around not even being aware of the world we're in. uh Einstein was you know right when he said this theory of relativity that I'm giving you is wrong but it's the best I can do in my lifetime to at least explain a small sliver of what what we observe in reality but it's totally wrong and we know that now so having said that that for me this is the uh evidence of God and the and it and it may explain a lot of the things that people see that they can't explain okay and I'll just describe describe in fact something everybody can read if they want to be aggressive about learning about quantum. Read about quantum computing. Read about quantum sensing. Read about quantum communication. And and here's what we observe. We don't know why this happens and we don't know how it happens. Just think of a caveman. The first caveman that's you know that observed fire that started from electric, you know, from a lightning bolt. He didn't know how it happened. He didn't know why it happened, but he knew it happened. And he knew that there was something dangerous about that because it burned up the tree. But it gave him heat. And he was fascinated. How can I use this to make my life better? And look where we've come. Okay, that's the stage we're at with quantum. It's like we have just seen a lightning bolt start a fire and we can observe what's happening and some of the effects of that but we have no clue why or how. So let's start with uh quantum sensing. Okay. uh quantum sensing um and and then we'll go to quantum uh computing and then we'll go to quantum um uh communication. Quantum sensing uh is is capable of detecting anything that moves on the earth. Uh and again this is why space and quantum are going to be such a powerful uh mixture of technologies that will change fate and and why we need to be leaders in this to make to defend our values because ultimately all of this competition with China, Russia, anybody else is about who who who can protect their values. I don't want to change China's values if they want to if they want to do what they're doing, but I want to sure as hell protect our values. So here it is with quantum sensing. Imagine now with the right quantum sensing you can see and understand the precise velocity position uh of anything that moves down to a net or less. Okay? So you can understand exactly what's going on. Okay? And you can do it with um with with incredibly uh low energy levels and low cost. Okay? This is why the ultimate strategic high ground of space is going to be so important in defending our values, defending our sovereignty, defending our culture and defending our economy. So that's sensing. Let's talk about um um uh communication or let's talk about uh computation. So, uh, I talked about, um, u, well, you know, Microsoft making an announcement a couple months ago about their quantum, uh, uh, computer. Um, and, uh, they, uh, it may have been in the breakfast or the earlier time that I I mentioned this if I haven't mentioned it with you. Um, so they announced where they're at with quantum and it is astounding. Um, because they will be able to crack every code and every blockchain, every everything we have ever invented to keep any secret. They will be able to know it almost immediately. uh and uh so there are no secrets and and yet the people that have this quantum capability can have the the the Fort Knox Fort Knox of security. Okay. But for that quantum uh uh computation that can do all of this uh and and turn AI into a super um tool for humanity. um you need to cool that quantum computer down to u you know uh much less than one Kelvin which is almost to the point where molecules no longer move at all absolute zero. The best we can do right now with any form of um of of efficiency is um you know um a hydrogen cooling technique but that only gets you down to about one Kelvin and you got to get down to about 80 millichelvin. Um the only known way of cooling something to that level is helium 3. So now think about this. China is mining helium 3 on the moon which is abundant and could you know could supply the energy needs of the human race for thousands of years just with what we know is on the moon right now. Not to mention what's on asteroids and anywhere where there's a celestial body that does not have an atmosphere that prevents it from getting to through onto the earth. So, we have some helium 3 on Earth, but very little. And that's why it's millions of dollars for just an ounce. But on the moon, you've got enough to fuel the entire human race for thousands of years. That's kind of giving you a differential. If China can cool their quantum computers with helium 3 before we can, the jig is up. This is part of the power of space, you know, translated into something tangible and operational called quantum. So that's quantum computing which would uh make all secrets null and void which might not be a bad thing because then only people that don't need to keep secrets uh are the ones revealed and evil can't hide. This is where this technology can be good or it can be bad as long as the human heart is good and the majority of people that dominate these technologies have a good heart and love their god and love other people like do God loves them. We we have a pathway to the golden age. If only evil people um developed these technologies like if Hitler were first for the atomic bomb, we would probably all be speaking German right now and it would be a very different reality. So let's get to the most uh interesting of the quantum technologies that we've observed and that is quantum um communication. Is this quantum entanglement? Yes. Okay. And this is what I think he was referring to when he talks about time and space. Here's what we observe. And I'll just talk about what we observe. Uh no in full knowledge that I'm no expert, but I read a lot and I am friends with people that are experts. When we observe quantum communication, not only um when you entangle two elements, meaning uh that this uh particle is associated with this particle. Uh when one moves, the other moves instantaneously regardless of the distance apart. So that blows out of the water, you know that the speed of light is as fast as you can move. It shows that our universe is connected in ways we cannot see. we do not understand. Um, and there's a a trilogy of books out there if that you ought to read. Uh, one of the most um storytellers like Rodenberry with uh, you know, the uh, Star Trek, they are good at looking at the trend lines of technology and and um, being able to predict the outcome of what that might mean as engineers and scientists actually develop it. So, in the 60s in Star Trek, you had the the the the communicator, which was our current day flip phone. Okay? They hadn't gone far as a a smartphone, but the communicator was pretty pretty darn good for Rodenberry. There is a Chinese fiction writer that wrote a trilogy called trilogy called The Threebody Problem. Now, you may have heard about it, but you probably haven't read it because, you know, it's three books and they can be pretty dense. But anybody that is interested in how technology can change fate ought to read those books because this is a man that has studied quantum and has described a future of people that live in other parts of the universe so far away from us that we have no clue they're there. Um and and how their knowledge of quantum allows them to come to us. And they're coming to us because they see something in our earth and our civilization that is so magical and so beautiful that they want it. And they want it at the price tag of our existence. Okay? And and uh and it but it's a story of technology. It's a story that describes what quantum can do based on our observations. And so this gets us back to quantum communication where two elements um can be intimately connected such that one moves the other moves. So do you mind if I just interject here? So I I did a little bit of research on this and the way that I understand it is that that if you split an atom Mhm. and it doesn't matter the distance that the that the two halves are. It could be like you're saying a whole another part of the universe. It could be from US to Japan. It could be anywhere. But if you put a vibration on one of those halves of the atom Yeah. then the no matter where no matter where the other part of the atom is, it will mimic the exact same vibration. Yes. And we're able to communicate that way. That's right. But here's the other part of it that is so uh fascinating and gets to the time travel. So it's not just that it uh you can communicate that way but that if if the communication uh is observed by a third party it will rewrite history and it will never have happened. What do you mean by that? Okay so um uh you know that this is where your audience needs to do their own reading. Okay. because I am not an expert but the experts have documented and proven that uh that that uh quantum communication uh has certain qualities to it that we don't understand. One of them is the one you just talked about where the vibration of one is identical and simultaneous to the other no matter how far apart they are. We don't know why or how but we know it's true and we know how to manipulate that to communicate. Okay, we know how to um we don't understand the connection. We don't understand the connection. Okay, but the other piece of it is that if you communicate and somebody observes it and you didn't want it to be observed, it disappears. Meaning it never happened. And when you go back and you look, the evidence does not exist that it ever happened. Say that again. Yeah, I know. I know. It's a mindbender. Okay. um if if uh if quantum communication and again I I want to be very careful that I'm not the expert. Okay. So, you need to read the literature yourself and the and and the peer-reviewed documents on some of the experiments that have taken place with quantum communication. But it literally can rewrite history. Uh if it you know if it does not want to be seen, if it does not want it to be discovered, uh it it does it is not discoverable. And so I say it rewrites history. I don't know how it does that. uh and I don't think anybody does but we have observed it that it dis if if it's observed it disappears and it it's like it never happened. So again I don't know but God has created a universe where these things could happen and like the caveman that sees the first lightning that starts a fire we are on a race to figure out how we can harness this reality of our physical universe. And it it could mean that future generations of people come back to us in time travel. It could mean like in the threebody problem where the people that are hundreds of millions of light years away start uh you know can communicate to individuals like you or me through our brain waves and even our eyeballs and what we can see because of the ability to manipulate at the molecular level across distances that are infinite. Who knows how God has created this universe? But for me, it is the it is the evidence of God and how little we know. But that God has given us a brain so powerful that scientists and engineers have figured out that this happens, that it exists. Wow. And the only question is how do we use it uh to love one another better and to love God better? Because ultimately that's our only purpose in life in my view. to glorify God. How do we use this knowledge God has given us to glorify God and not let evil people use it as a weapon against good people? This is why we as a nation need to invest in technology. This is why we need to be able to build infrastructure and space uh less expensively than our competition because this is about the forever game. This is about um the endurance of an economy that can do more capable things at lower price points than our competition. U and and this is why I focus on water and on um the infrastructure of space that can deliver energy and information. But ultimately information is the best. If we got rid of every piece of technology, it comes back to telling stories and triangulating truth by talking to a lot of people and figuring out who is deceiving you because they're deceived themselves and where the truth lies, experimenting, critical thinking, teaching our children how to ask questions, how to be suspicious in a healthy way, how to be critical at thinking through logical things. And then if we can do that, if we can focus on an interior life that increases our relationship with God and our goodness as a human being and we can uh and we can understand how technology is something God has given us as a gift uh to help bring about more goodness. Uh we can as a human race usher in a golden age. Someday somebody will figure out technology that will then make that irrelevant. But I'm here to tell you that the industrial age of many of the technologies we celebrate rightfully so like uh you know the fighter jet or the tank or the ship um are are very quickly becoming artifacts of a museum. We can't stop building them until we have a firm grasp on the future. But we are not sufficiently investing in some of these future technologies that we can see the beginnings of and that we have a race that's on with other societies that see it and they are investing billions and we are investing millions and thank God for President Trump because he is he is correcting that economic imbalance and he's doing it through the brilliance of negotiating and the trade deals and the invest ment in things that are classified and unclassified in the declassification of things so the American people can see more of what's going on. There are so many layers of this awakening for the global community that President Trump is ushering in that um I I I just beg that everybody, whether you are uh you know what, no matter what your geopolitics are or your your um or your or your you know the the politics you prescribe to, start reading, start learning because the world is about to change in ways that are more dramatic than the people in 1898 that rode their horse to field and and and lit their home with a candle experienced over a hundred years. We're going to experience changes dramatically more consequential in lightning speed like in the next few decades. So hang on to your hats and start learning because if you are a citizen that does not, you know, just gets up, has a cup of coffee, goes to work, comes home, has dinner with your family, and goes to bed, and rinses and repeats. and you don't study technology, you don't study history, you don't study culture, you don't study human nature, and you don't study uh your politicians that are making policy decisions that are inconsistent with your rights and your constitution, then you will not hang on to this republic, just like our founding fathers said. Thank you. And that's what you're doing. Thank you. So, keep doing it. I mean this atom quantum entanglement I mean that that could mean there's another you oh yeah doing the exact same again we we don't know I mean we can guess and we can uh project and again some of these um writers some of our storytellers some of our creatives are people that live on the edge of reality more so than you know I I consider myself dumb enough to be happy you know I've got the labboontomy so I can compartmental alize and I can be happy even though a lot of crap is happening in our world. Okay. But there are people these geniuses and many of them are storytellers uh in Hollywood and other places that can see more clearly the consequences of these technologies and the stories they write today will be our future of the tomorrow. And so it is valuable to read uh these science fiction writers. Um, and that's why I propose the book u if you want to think about quantum read the three-body problem. If you want to understand AI, there's tons of them out there, but that is much more dumbed down. Uh, AI is really stupid. It is just a projection of an algorithm and the values written by the person that programmed it. And it will program itself for future problems. But it's all predicated on the database and what it is looking at to learn. And if somebody can manipulate what that learning database is and quantum will be able to do that, it will learn exactly what our enemy wants it to learn. And now your pet will be telling you exactly what you should not do. Uh and you'll do it because you think that pet is your best friend. You know, so AI again can be a disaster or it can be blessing. when we're talking about extraterrestrial life, you know, that's that's been a big topic in the in Congress for about two years now. Yeah. And we see all these things that we can't explain, these things coming out of the water. I mean, what what do you think of this? Yeah. This stuff. So, uh, I have not had any personal experiences that, um, that that are like the ones that I've heard from people I love and are the most sober, honest, salt of the earth, non-exaggerating people that were ever built that that walk this planet, but they have experienced things like you're talking about. and at young ages and and old age you know it across their lifetime they have seen multiple manifestations of things they could not explain and and I don't have any explanation I mean I've experienced a lot of things in aviation at uh altitudes and in places across the globe that I you know that that just turn me upside down but most of the time it was my inner ear and the fact that your eyeballs are so powerful that I'll be on a tanker refueling over Afghanistan and I'll feel like I'm doing a barrel roll and pulling to my death. And if I do anything about it, I'll be pulling to my death. And I have to let go of the controls, put it on autopilot, and trust the technology. And that's the only way I can save my life. Because the brain and the mind can be so deceived, so deceived, and we don't even realize it. This gets back to information warfare and how quickly we can be deceived by somebody weaving a narrative in their own self-interest and we believe it line hook line and sinker. So back to unexplained phenomenon. I believe that there are things out there we have seen and cannot explain. And I don't know whether it's quantum that is this peak under the tent that it it is possible someday once we figure it out how to time travel and how people could come and visit us. but also prevent us from having the evidence that they visited us or some people that may have visited us and the artifacts of their visit are somewhere but it is so um fearful to the people that might have it that they prevent us from seeing it. So all of those things could be true. I just I keep a open and humble mind about the fact, you know, when we talked about quantum that we now see evidence that we know so little about this universe that any arrogance or pride that says I know physics or I know technology is is is a fool rushing in uh to your own demise. So I keep an open mind and a humble heart and I I you know but it in this universe as we're transitioning from the industrial age to the information age or the digital age or theorked age whatever you want to call it it's important for human beings to not believe anything they hear and only half of what they see physically not a picture okay and even then start investing in more time with other human beings and talking to people from different cultures. protecting different cultures to believe different things, eat different food, wear different clothes, celebrate the differences because as a human race, that is our lifeline. talking to one another, discovering people that may be lying to you because they don't have a good heart or they're deceived so dramatically. But triangulating truth through the human mind, the human heart, and the fact that we are communicating in a way face to face, you cannot do over Zoom. It is not good enough. And the more we fall into this trap of not being physically together, the more we lose about the unseen connections we have with one another that God has created. Um, and the more we can be deceived. Well, Steve, this has been a fascinating conversation. I'd love to have you back sometime. Yeah. But, um, thank you. Appreciate that. And again, I pre I want to come back to you and um the fact that for whatever reason um you have um invested in probably the most important thing that we need as a human race. And I know that you're probably also bombarded with people trying to influence what you say and what you do and preventing you from telling the truth u or triangulating truth as I like to say. And so I just applaud the the courage it takes, the willingness to um lose some friends but make new ones. Um and uh and and realizing that the real battle in life is the interior battle. uh whether it's a marriage or your work in life um our success really rises or falls based on the discipline and the obedience of following God's laws that are carved in our hearts and um and uh you know like King Solomon the wisest man in the world that ever was or ever will be based on what the Bible tells us and yet he was one of the biggest disasters of a leader because he didn't understand that wisdom wasn't what he should have asked for. It was obedience to God's law. God's law. That's the the real su secret of success. And it starts with the interior life. So, I thank you for being one of those men that is seeking for that internal truth both within your own heart um and your connection to God and that we are moral creatures and that you know without God and this worldview that there is one God and he has made us as moral creatures that then cascades into our beliefs that then cascade into our values and into our politics and policies. um we will never be able to defend our values and we will never survive as a nation or as individuals. That's the key to survival and it starts with truth. Thank you. Okay. runs it, you know, and and um yeah, we've gone through a lot of scary times and and and I think we've navigated out of most of the traps, but um I know he's got me and my family and and uh I'll keep doing it till he doesn't. So, and I don't think that's going to happen, but Well, I um you know, we just don't know what God's will is. But what we do know is if we make a good decision, God can work his perfect will through that good decision. If we make a bad decision because we're human and we're imperfect and we're fallible and all of us suffer from attacks uh from evil. Um if we are humble and contrite and uh ask for forgiveness even for things we don't know we did wrong. God can work all things for good to those that love him. And he will work his permissive will around those actions that can sometimes prevent his perfect will. So that that's what allows me to sleep well at night. that even though I am imperfect and I make bad decisions and I am an impediment to God's perfect will and an impediment to his glorification, if I pray every night for his forgiveness and u and and um and for uh redemption, um he will he will make good on his promise to work his permissive will around my stubbornness, my ego, my arrogance, my pride and uh and his he will still glorify himself and his will on this world earth and in heaven uh despite me. Steve, thank you so much. Thank you. God bless. It's been an honor. [Music] No matter where you're watching Shawn Ryan Show from, if you get anything out of this, please like, comment, subscribe, and most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling extra generous, please leave us a review on Apple and Spotify podcasts.